Cardone's Bar - Westerville

We arrived at 8:09, went inside staff came up asked if we had a reservation, (we did 8:15) said they were getting our table ready for us, and we sat down, our waiter came over and was just very short with us. He wasn’t like this with anyone else. He was very friendly with every other table but ours. The waiter who waited on the table next to us offered them freshly ground pepper and told them about how the owner cooks for the restaurant, he was nice to his tables aswell. Unlike our waiter who was very just rude with us and unwelcoming. I saw him bag another tables food and gave them a nice to go bag and everything, we didn’t get that option. He barely came to our table to ask us how things were, he wasn’t very attentive to our table. We started to notice things the longer we sat there. He was a blond. Very rude. We thought maybe because we weren’t dressed in a suit and tie he didn’t think he would get a tip or anything like that, but regardless of how rude he was to us we ended up tipping him 20%, would of been more if he was a better waiter. We were very excited to try the restaurant because of the reviews. The food was amazing. The wait staff wasn’t. And that’s why I can only give this restaurant two stars.

This is a quaint and old-fashioned, family-run type place. Jared was our server. He was great. The dining room is small so you better make reservations. It really filled up. I had Chicken Caprese, wife had Chicken Carbonara. Hers had more flavor than mine. Prices were very reasonable, and my only wish was that portions were larger.

The food was delicious. Hand made fresh from scratch by the owner. Excellent atmosphere, very intimate and romantic. We especially liked our arancini appetizer, the caprese salad and the calamari. For main courses we shared the melt-in-your-mouth balsamic glazed short ribs and the healthiest scallops ever fresco. Everything was served at the appropriate temperatures, good-sized portions (we left totally satisfied), and delicious. We were too full for dessert but we will go back to try some other dishes and possibly bring a dessert home with us. Overall 5 stars.

Everyone there was very nice. Food was good. We popped in during a weekday to get dinner. Unfortunately service took a very long time. We were there from a little after 7 to 8:45. All we ordered were entrees. No apps, drinks or desserts. They must have only 1 chef. Pizza came out 1st and a bit later our pasta dish came out. Just too long for a weekday dinner. We all had work and school the next day. Overall I do recommend checking it out, but make sure you have time. Lots of time.

It’s okay. Service was nice. Food and bread took a bit longer than you would expect on a slow evening (not the servers fault, though). The bread was probably the best thing I tasted lol. The arancini didn’t have a lot of flavor. The salad was eh, I could tell the tomatoes were kind of tasteless/not super fresh. The entree (chicken caprese) was a very nice flavor (balsamic pesto). But I had to add olive oil to my spaghetti because it was a little dry, and a lot of salt/pepper for flavor. The parmagiano cheese wasn’t the flavorful reggiano you see at a lot of nicer Italian places. Not bad, just had higher expectations. Nothing WRONG with the place though and again, very nice service! I wouldn’t tell somebody NOT to go there by any means. It’s just kind of hard to recommend it when there are a lot of better places nearby, for the same price.