Ok, so back in May, DF and I went to Disney to do some planning for the wedding. We met with Karen from JustMarry and took a look at the ceremony location in which we love and 100% happy with.... I will post more on that later. Anyways, While there, we met with someone from Il Mulino to check the place out and see where our group would be sitting, talk about food and alcohol, etc....
Overall, the restaurant is very nice, lovely in fact. Here are some pics of the facilities to begin with.
The Bar and Entrance...
The Courtyard where we were thinking of having the pre-reception/cocktail hour
Cool little decorative setting... When you walk into Il Mulino, and get to this point, there is a dining area to the left and a dining area to the right, and there is a good distance between them ( I will get back to this, I swear)
So to start, things look great, and I feel like this place is just right. We meet with the manager and she shows us our options of where we could have our party at.
Option A
Option B
So, as I was saying above, there is a dining area to the left of that decorative setting. That would be option A. There is no wall or divider, but it's definitely away from the other part of the dining room, so I was very pleased with that, because I knew we would have a lot of people, and sometimes when we drink, we get out of hand... it's for the good of everyone that we are as secluded as possible
Then there is option B. That is a part of the right side of the restaurant. We weren't thrilled with this option. First of all I don't see how it would hold all our people (There were 70 at this time) and that is what the max is supposed to be. I dunno, to me it seems like it would be squishy. I also didn't like how it was just long, but not really wide, you know?? Like we would have guests waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy far away, where as in the option A it would at least be more square and more evenly dispersed if that makes any sense at all. Then there are the dividers, which in theory I should like because of the whole needing to keep my group secluded thing, but in reality I didn't like it because it made the area seem even smaller.... Maybe I'm just being picky but I just wasn't thrilled....
So anyways, no big deal right? Just choose option A right? Well here is where I think I was getting really frustrated with the whole thing... The whole time we are there, the manager was discouraging us from using that first option because the F/B minimum would be so high (even though I kept assuring her we would make it because it would be full dinner and open bar for at least 70 and the math worked out just fine) and that they really don't like to reserve that side if they don't have to so they can fill it with other customers. Which I guess makes sense, but she just kept saying it over and over and over, so it made me question why she showed it to us in the first place. So needless to say, I left here not very satisfied with it.
We did not however write it off completely yet, because we decide to come back for dinner and at least try the food.
Now mind you, I don't exactly have the most refined tastes and I was coming in already a bit bummed out about our day earlier, so my opinions may not be completely fair, so you may not want to base any of your decisions off this...
To start, our appetizer, Insacatta Misti or sumthin....
Translate: 29$ for a plate of deli meat...
There should be some mozzarella chunks on the empty part of the plate, but we ate them before I remembered to snap a picture...
This was interesting, not bad, just not what I hoped for, and it was something that was in fact on the private dining menu that we would be serving during the cocktail hour, and I was not excited to do so.
Bread was good, I love dipping oil too...
DFs dinner... He said he liked it... To me it didn't seem like much, but I also hate shrimp so I can't be a good judge (again, not very refined tastes, sorry
)
My dinner was good. But not great, the tortellini tastes just like what I would buy frozen and cook up and add sauce to. But that is one of my fave meals though, but I can do it at home, but it was something on the private dining menu so I though I would try it... Nothing to write home about. I would serve it to our guests (minus the peas maybe) but not be excited for it.
So all in all, while this place may work great for someone else, DF and I vetoed it... I left very sad and bummed out, and I really think that if that happens, then you probably shouldn't book it... just a hunch...
Soooo, next up will be reception fail # 2.... and then reception fail #3.... and then hopefully reception idea #4 won't be a fail because we are almost in the 6 month mark!!! yikes!
Thank goodness.
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