Vine & Olive

My family and I had a great dinner at Vine & Olive. We did a family style meal where we all shared the spinach/artichoke dip, lasagna, chicken Parmesan, Caesar salad, grouper, and the mushroom ravioli. It was all excellent! I loved the flavors in each dish and every plate was empty. The decoration and atmosphere is classy and calm. We went at 6pm on a Wednesday and it wasn’t super busy.

I NEVER post negative reviews about local restaurants since I want our local community and small businesses to grow, but our experience tonight was so terrible that I felt it was necessary to warn others. My husband and I arrived at 6pm tonight, Friday, February 16th, and were seated immediately, since it wasn’t overly busy, in a great location next to the window overlooking the water. We were very pleased with the ambiance of the room and were excited to taste some wine and delicious food. We used the QR codes to look at their menu (even though the host said he would bring us physical menus but forgot to) and made up in our minds what we’d like to try. After about 10 minutes after being seated, we looked around to see if our waitress saw we were seated. 10 minutes AFTER THAT, another couple was seated near us so we asked the host that was seating them if our waitress knew we were seated in her section (now 20 minutes after arriving). They said they would check. Another 5 minutes went by and our waitress showed up seemingly completely unaware still that we had been there nearly 30 minutes without being acknowledged, asking if we needed a physical menu or wanted time to look over our options. We said we’d been there for a little over 20 minutes so we knew what we wanted. We started with the wine. It took nearly 10 more minutes for her to bring a small sample of white wine for me (which was warm) and my husband’s full glass of red to him. We ordered appetizers and our meals at the same time to try to make sure it would come out a bit quicker. The appetizers we ordered were the fried artichokes and the warm focaccia. It took at least 20 minutes for these 2 items to get delivered. The artichoke heart parts were very hard inside and not cooked. The marinara dipping sauce tasted like canned tomato sauce except a huge chunk of garlic my husband found while dipping. The focaccia bread is NOT focaccia. The closest I could compare it to is Texas toast consistency, where you squish it, it flattens completely. Focaccia is a nice dense Italian bread that doesn’t flatten nearly at all, but they still call their bread focaccia. For our actual entrées, I ordered the truffles mushroom raviolis. It showed up in what looked like dishwater. There was no creamy sauce, just a soggy watery mess. The filling tasted like over-salted cheese filling, no hint of mushroom at all. It was completely inedible. My husbands steak was well prepared but underwhelming in flavor overall. In the end, for the 2 of us, it took an hour and a half for dinner, cost us $120 for food plus the $24 for tip to have one of the worst Italian meals I think I’ve ever had. Besides the pretty dining room, my husband and I left feeling completely disappointed and ripped off.

The dishes are quite tasty and had a beautiful presentation. For the prices, I would have expected bread with our meals rather than having to pay $3 extra for 2pcs of foccacia. On the service part, the staff was very friendly. Staff may want to notify customers the food menus were QR's on the paper placemats listed below the wine and liquor menu. We thoroughly enjoyed the food and would probably return for a special occasion.

This was a true five star experience! After visiting Italy earlier this year, we've been trying to find local restaurants that offer an authentic Tuscan experience. One thing I've noticed is that tagliatelle pasta is very popular over there are very rare here. I was so excited to find it on the menu at V&O! I got the braised short rib Bolognese and subbed in tagliatelle. It was out of this world! My wife also loved the 100 layer lasagna, which was the reason we came. The focaccia was also excellent. As far as cocktails go, I had a classic negroni to start (not on the menu but they make it really well) and then I tried their Controlled Burn (smoked butter fat bourbon cocktail) which was amazing. It's very smoky so it's not for everyone. Our server was Christian and he was great! My six year old daughter fell in love with him by the end of the meal. His mother works behind the bar making the magic happen inside my glass and she's very good at what she does. They're a killer combo! This may be my new favorite Italian restaurant in Brevard, which is a shame for me because I live in West Melbourne. Definitely worth the drive!

Nice place, we gave it a try looking for pizza. Turns out they don't serve pizza because they're more of an Italian themed gastro bar. Our bad. Then they were out of flatbread because of a delivery problem earlier that day. Ok, we won't have that either. Ended up ordering 3 appetizers, but they forgot the bread. In their defense they'd been apparently swamped all day and we arrived 39 minutes before closing time. The staff was friendly and patient, we ended up getting some really good food, and it was a good experience. It's not our style so we won't be going back, but we do recommend other folks give it a try.

Sigh. I really wanted to love this place. I had been dying to come here for months, and was really excited to come here for dinner. I will say, the restaurant was busy and every staff member seemed to be working pretty hard. Our waiter, Ken, was straight and to the point but almost abrasive? The calamari and artichoke dip apps were very good! My friend ordered the salmon entree and loved it, she had no complaints…here’s where it gets “eh”. I ordered the Fig out flatbread….there was maybe two slices of prosciutto on it, a few slices of fig, and honey only on one side. I didn’t realize it was missing the arugula until after I had already eaten. Would have been much better if it had more of each component instead of very little just thrown in the center. My husband got the burger, he said it was ok but his potatoes were a little on the “too crispy” side and pretty plain. Our friend’s veal picatta was OK but was very thick and not pounded out at all, he said it was really dry. Our other friend got the scallop risotto and said it was good but the risotto was bland. All in all, the experience was not terrible. The service was good….but the food, especially at those prices was incredibly lacking. I expected a lot more but im glad I crossed this one off of my list to try - just sad I don’t have the desire to go back.