dwight's bistro

overrated. from the outside, dwight's has all the makings of a dive. so we were pleasantly surprised by the low key and inviting decor on the inside. we had heard some positive reviews by word of mouth, and had high expectations. sadly , we were disappointed. my wife had the sea bass, which was too deeply fried and ended up tasting like a distant cousin to a long john silver's fish stick. i had one of the homeadepastadishes and was unable to tell the difference between this and some ronco noodles. the crab cakes were excellent, however, and if you're going to go, i would recommend these to cut your losses. at the end of it all, our bill was well over $150 for two people. yikes. we'll be more careful before we choose a "quaint" underground jacksonville restaraunt the next time.

liked it. fabulous atmosphere with great service and fine dining. dwight makes all hispastadaily. his crab cakes are to delicious! excellent wine list and inviting staff to guide you if you need assistance. great date place or if you just want to go to the bar and grab a nice glass of wine and crab cake it offers that too.

for the price, you might as well go... to olive garden. my husband and i had a coupon from restaurant.com to use and we were in the mood for italian. we ordered the escargot, which we usually enjoy. i must say they were extremely tender. but the soggy croutons floating in the not-enough-garlic oil were a disappointment as was some of the sand we crunched on. then our entrees came, which we both ordered the carbonara. as it was a way more than enough for two sized portion, the bacon was fatty and for the price of $20+ per plate, we expected more. the highlight was the bottle of moscato wine and the tiramisu dessert at the end. so after dropping over $100 on dinner with 1 appetizer, 2pastadishes, 1 bottle of the cheapest wine, and 1 dessert, we were no less to say, disappointed for the money we spent. so, next time we are craving italian food, we are going to olive garden where we can get more and pay much less.

boring. bread, which they think is so special, can be waded up like hostess wonder bread. ordered an appetizer which was missing ingredients. we were told they ran out. really!pastacarbonara was gummy. don't ask for salt, they have only 2 salt shakers in the whole restaurant. not good. wait staff were lost in space. incapable of describing dishes or specials.

a complete joke. i went here with my family a few saturday's ago. it was about 6 pm and we drove by to see if it was busy, the parking lot was dead so we decided to try to get in without a reservation. i had heard good things about dwight's from a few friends mentioning they made their own pasta. being a chef myself, i was excited at the thought of finding a new delicious restaurant near my house. the restaurant was cute with mozaik decorations and a small bar area. then a server approached us and asked us if we had a reservation. we said no and he seemed inconvenienced by our presence. he then told us he would check to see if they had anything available. while we were waiting on him, another server came over and asked us the same thing. do you have a reservation? no hello, welcome, how are you tonight, just do you have reservation? we said no again and they walked off. at this point, i was already irritated with the idea that they didn't have a hostess or at least someone who was relatively pleasant to greet us at the door. a 3rd person came over and asked us if we had a damn reservation. i said no, we do not have a reservation and as this was occuring the first person came back over and said he had cleared a table and we could sit. i almost walked out at this point but figured we could at least eat, and if the food was stellar all would be forgotten. so we went into the other room where there was only about 5-6 tables; only 2 of them were occupied. it wasn't busy at all, and remind you this was a saturday night at peak dining hours. we sat and the server came over a few minutes later with some water and got our drink order. he was not friendly but i cannot say he was outright rude; he was pretty much just there.

anyway, moving on to the food. i ordered a daily special, sea bass; my mom ordered a caesar salad and the carbonara(server recommendation); and my dad ordred the scallops. the bread was ice cold as if they had pulled it out of the freezer which was pretty ridiculous since they are right next door to a bakery. sad story.

sea bass-ridiculously over priced for starters. the flavors were decent but portion size was outrageous. i got 1 filet of fish in the center of my place w/ a horseradish mustard sauce, 2 slices of zucchini,2 slices of carrots, 1 ravioli and about an oz of carmalized onions. it was like a tasting menu with the addition of 1 filet of sea bass. the ravioli was good but it was not enough food. i'm not a big girl and i ate all of my own food and some of my mothers. who serves ravioli with sea bass and 2 slices of vegtables? that doesn't make any sense. the plates were not well thought out and the plate presentation was lacking for the price they charge.

caesar/carbonara- the caesar was just a regular side caesar salad i guess it was dusted with gold because i think it was over $10. i want to say 12 but don't quote me on this. the carbonara was bland, needed salt badly and it was under sauced. thepastahad good flavor but was actually undercooked slightly. it was more than al dente.

scallops- they had good flavor and were cooked correctly but were super over priced.

anyways, i won't be returning and certainly won't be suggesting anyone to eat at this restaurant, ever. the total bill was over a $120 for 3 entrees, a side salad and 1 tea.

very disappointed, more than a little overrated. we went there to celebrate the occasion of two birthdays in our party of four. we had heard favorable word of mouth from friends of ours who frequent the 'jacksonville top 25'.
frankly, we were more than somewhat disappointed - for several reasons. the pricing here is really quite high for a place that truthfully looks like a 'neighborhood dive' on the outside and most of the inside as well.
we were seated in the small second room by a party of six who obviously had been well into the winelist (which is quite lengthy and extensive) for a while. before our orders were taken we requested that we be reseated due to the extreme loudness of the other party, although there were open tables visable in the third room, our request was declined and we were told that the other party 'would be leaving soon'. thirty minutes later they did leave - we could not even hear the waiter tell us about the specials & the menu selections due to the noise. conversation at the table was next to impossible until the party at the other table left.
the crab cakes are apparently their best item, and the waiter recommended a 'half salad' and crab cakes prior to the entrees.
crab cakes there are very good and if you dine there you should indeed try them. the salads, however, were extremely ordinary, to say the least. worst of all was the spinach half salad - no more than a few spinach leaves with some carrot & onion shavings and a spinkle of bacon crumbs. no dressing of any type was in, on or beside the salad when delivered. none of the half salads were very large at all either, contrary to the waiter's advisement.
we all had pastra entrees, three different ones between the four of us. they were indeed very good, but averaged more than $25 each. we have to say that there was not $100 worth ofpastathere on the table! (you get four ravoli for that type entree) also, delivery of the entrees was awfully slow, particularly as the place was half empty at the time.
in our experience, this place is way over priced for the dining experience and atmosphere it presents. the two small rooms other than the entree room by the 'bar' both look like the back rooms of an old house converted into a diner. if you want to order a mixed drink, you are out of luck as well.
in summary, you simply can do much better at most of the others in the jacksonville "top 25' for the money.