"The Carlton hotel and its restaurant seem to be trying to project an image of sophistication that they no longer embody. The service was extremely slow; it took nearly 30 minutes for our drinks to arrive, and after 50 minutes, we still hadn’t received our appetizers. The server provided excuses but no real explanations, and things didn’t improve even after we brought it up.
I ordered the cobia from the Miami Spice menu, which is a fixed-price deal, and the portion was very small. My brother ordered sea bass from the regular menu, and his serving was easily four times the size. Considering sea bass isn’t cheap, it appears that the prix fixe meals come with smaller portions—evidenced by the tiny piece of key lime tart that was served as the dessert. My wife had the pasta from the prix fixe menu, which had a more generous portion, but pasta is relatively inexpensive to serve.
Also, the cocktails start at $17, and a glass of wine is $14! They automatically added an 18% gratuity to our bill without mentioning it—this is for a party of three! Our total for dinner, which included two prix fixe meals, three cocktails, and one glass of wine, came to a staggering $270. What a waste!"
