Allora Coastal Italian

“My girlfriends and I flew in for the couple of days and spent our last night at Allora! It was wonderful, the food was great but Ellie our server was phenomenal she knew so much about the menu and gave amazing advice on food and drinks! The atmosphere tied in the amazing experience as we were on the rooftop. Highly recommend you ask for Ellie as she is the best server hands down!! Ellie we love you!!! I got the chicken piccata and it was delicious! My girlfriends got the linguine le limone and the fried zucchini pasta they both loved! 10/10! Definitely coming back for our next Charleston trip!”

“This charming Restaurant is my new favorite place. Love the business model with airy and breezy rooftop bar, downstairs for supper, and gelato available to passers-by. We enjoyed Lumache (carbonara)wonderfully made with guancialle, and the wild arugula salad. Supper was served with focaccia bread and olive oil. Olive oil was peppery and grassy. I had the Fiori di Amalfi for my cocktail. It was beautiful and well balanced. Loved the beautiful dishes and cloth napkins. Water glasses were very thoughtful colors and blended with vibe. Wait staff Jean and Tyler made us feel special and happy. Gelato was fantastic !”

“What an absolute treat this was from start to finish. Our server Georgia was a delight, happy friendly and very helpful throughout. She took time to speak with us and ensured drinks were topped up from the table. Other staff members were equally as friendly. The food was superb.....the best Gnocchi I have ever had. My wife had the lobster spaghetti and this too was of a really high standard. The pistachio gelato and raspberry sorbet were equally as good. Dinner was accompanied with a bottle of Sancere which complimented the meal perfectly. Once dinner was done and the bill paid we retired to the bar for a couple of nights caps. Again the staff were fabulous, really chatty and friendly whilst going about their end of day tasks which they put second to serving us. An all round top night and so far the best dining experience I have had on this trip.”

“I had such a great experience at this restaurant! We had a casual Sunday night dinner with friends, and from the moment we walked in, we absolutely loved the decor and ambiance. The table and seats were super comfortable and had enough space to feel private. The staff were all so friendly! Our server was incredibly knowledgable about the menu and he had some great recommendations for us. We started with the Wagyu Beef Carpacio and it was amazing! So rich and delicious. Of course, my heart was won over by the complimentary focaccia bread served in cute little paper bags - we got two it was so good! For my main course, I ordered the Ricotta Gnocchi with ripe tomato, basil and olive oil. It was classic and wonderful! My husband ordered the daily special - Sunday Sauce with Polenta and three meats - sausage and braised beef. So savory! We shared back and forth for the perfect combination. For dessert, we split the Tiramisu and a cappuccino. Can't wait to come back again soon!”

“It was a double date night to celebrate a friend’s birthday since she’s been wanting to come here. They also love southbound and we loved honeysuckle so we were eager to try their newer restaurant. Had a reservation for 7pm but our table wasn’t ready when we arrived and our hostess also did not tell us a time frame, but instead lead us to the rooftop bar instead to wait and get a drink. Since this was for a birthday, I would’ve thought that since our table wasn’t ready they would’ve perhaps offered a complimentary round of sparkling wine or anything in the meantime while we waited. However we did meet a lovely bartender on the top floor that kept us company while we were summoned about 20 minutes after to walk back down to our table. The restaurant inside was stunning, however the layout was a bit challenging to navigate through especially if it is busy, which it was. We had to walk along a narrow path up and down and around the place. There’s also not an ideal place to wait to use the restroom as well. I know that we had to check out both bathrooms because we’ve heard the owner designs some pretty epic ones if you’ve been to their other restaurants. They were both beautiful and clean! As we made our way to the table we met our server (name starts with a K - so sorry I couldn’t remember) He was very nice, and guided us through the gluten free options for my husband who has celiac. We started with the calamari and tender greens salad. Simple and straight forward, nothing crazy but good. We ordered a handful of entrees to share, mainly pastas and the branzino. I must say that pastas overall were very underwhelming. While I do understand their concept is “coastal Italian” these dishes don’t use a lot of ingredients but focus on the fresh and traditional styles which is fine. However, nothing stood out at all. A lot of the flavors were very one dimensional and I was the most disappointed with the Lumache aka Carbonara. I’m not sure who made this, but it was done very poorly. Way too salty, the sauce aka cheese broke (not folded in coating the noodles properly) and the noodles were way overcooked. The linguine had way too much olive oil and noodles were also overcooked. I will at least say we enjoyed the dishes with the rigatoni pasta better than the others. I found the presentation for the Branzino to be a bit strange compared to the way our server described it being a “whole fish.” Again this dish was just ok and we would’ve preferred it actually whole like most branzinos we’ve had before. Our server brought out a complimentary cannoli over for the birthday dessert after we already ordered one to try. I wish we would’ve known so we could’ve ordered another dessert to have some variety, but it was still a nice gesture. Personally, the zeppoles were too dense and some of the bites I took left a lot of residual oil in my mouth. I may be willing to try this place again because maybe it was just an off night, but I will say for how much money we spent, it did not satisfy or match the quality of food we expected.”