Trattoria Salve - Durham

There was something tremendously wrong with this restaurant the night we went We ended up walking out before we even got our meal after being there almost two hours. They kept apologizing, saying they were slammed, but the wait to be seated minutes, and we had a reservation) and sitting at the bar for minutes and not even being asked if we wanted a drink, should have clued us in. The first thing we were told by our waiter was that they were out of bread (seriously?? An Italian restaurant? minutes after placing our order we were given Caesar salads which amounted to a handful, if that, of chopped romaine lettuce and a few croutons sprinkled on top. Again they apologized, saying it shouldn't have taken that long for salads (right about that Then waited another minutes for our meal, which we were presented just as we had decided jut to leave. Actually, when the waiter brought out the one meal, he said that mine would take another minutes. During the whole evening, dirty tables kept piling up as there was no one to bus them. I'm sorry, if there was something going on that prevented them from offering quality food and service, they should have just turned the customers away. I hope they can get on track, but I probably won't go back.

This was the worst experience I have ever had in my life. We came here to celebrate our anniversary. We made reservations for pm. The hostess told us she had to clean off a table and would seat us in a few minutes. Totally minutes later we still weren't seated despite there being OPEN TABLES. My fiancà had to find the hostess and make her seat us. She said the kitchen was busy and we wouldn't get any food for a while. We sat at the table for a half hour without a single person coming to talk to us. No water. No acknowledgement at all. My fiancà had to grab glasses from a neighboring table and ask a waitress for water. She offered to be our waitress. We gave her our order of an appetizer And two entrees and asked for drinks. We received the drinks and asked for bread. They were out of bread. An Italian restaurant out of bread?? Ok. We waited another half hour and never received any food. Not our appetizer or entrees. After being there for over an hour and a half with no food we left. They actually made us pay for our drinks despite the acknowledging that they gave us HORRIBLE SERVICE. Don't waste your time or money here. I understand places get busy but they weren't even busy!! They just blatantly ignored people because they didn't want to wait on us. We weren't the only ones.

We arrived, it was very busy, no table was ready for our reservation. We then got a table across from the bar, when the bartender came to the table, he told us the kitchen is overloaded, and service will be slow. We said had to be out by a particular time, and he said he couldn't be sure that could happen. So, we had no choice but to leave and see if we could get any food in the area without a reservation. We could only guess they were very understaffed for this Saturday night.

We were quite disappointed in our meal. We had read reviews, and thought the restaurant was worth a try, but there was no part of the meal that was good, much less very good. The meal began with bread which was good but not special. We then had a soup (pasta fazioli) that was bland but okay. Our other appetizer, calamari, arrived much later. It too was bland and tepid. One of our main dishes was tagliatelle with mushrooms that was bland and just ok but no more, and the other main dish was cavatelli with sausage which was salty beyond description basically inedible. The restaurant has been open nine months, so it is hard to ascribe this to growing pains. There are much better Italian restaurants in Durham, particularly Cucciolo Osteria and Gocciolina.

We dine here at least once a week. Evan and Dustin are terrific! They bust their tails to make sure their customers are well served, are always ready to make suggestions for wine pairings- introducing us to wines that have become new faves. The food, while nothing flashy, is consistently good (knowing the Cinelli family, not surprising). The atmosphere is casual and unpretentious. Good choice for date night, friends’ night out, or dinner any evening!