The Garlic

A family favorite, every time we visit family in Deland, we have drive over for dinner. We arrived around 4:30 and we had no wait time on a Wednesday night, by the time we left almost 90 min later, people were waiting to be seated. Our server was nice, not very attentive or I was reminded they didn’t “smooch” the garlic for us, maybe things have changed since our last visit, smooch it to our taste with olive oil. The bread 🥖 if perfect for dipping in the garlic, and asked for another loaf for when the dinners arrived, they are very generous with the bread. They don’t offer gluten free pasta, I was surprised but chicken Marsala is sided with mashed potatoes.

Ok, really, really cute place- 5 stars for that alone. LOVE the name of the restaurant- Garlic! As a vegetarian they do have options. I like that a salad comes with every entree including the pastas. That’s rare. Coming from St. Louis and The Italian Hill, where so many restaurants make their awesome salad dressings from scratch and sell them retail, I was expecting a unique dressing here. They only have one, which ONLY comes in the Grant salad. No exceptions on that. I should not tell you how to run run your ‘garlic’ business, but…. You need a house salad dressing that has GARLIC, at least for your namesake. I make my own dressings all the time and in fact, have a killer creamy garlic dressing. As it turned out, I did have a salad and mixed the balsamic and oil, salt and pepper on the table and it was really good. If everyone put as much balsamic on the salad as I did, you might want to take it off the table. THEN, came the bread and roasted garlic cloves. Absolutely Brilliant! Ok, I’m sold! The garlic spread was fabulous and a very unexpected offering. I added some of the roasted garlic to the dressing that I made on the spot. But, the roasting of the garlic or whatever you do is utterly sensational! I would have liked to be able to order just a small salad, but not an option by itself. Maybe the waiter truly forgot that I wanted that and said I could not have it unless I ordered an entree. For some reason, he brought a salad by ‘mistake’ and left it. Maybe he wanted me to try the salad to see what I thought. As I was only getting an appetizer, I was not allowed a small salad. So, very kind OR excellent marketing on the behalf of the waiter. I WILL order this for sure next time, as I mixed and made my own dressing. I usually like lots of dressing on a salad, and so I could do it my way. It was excellent! I thought that I could grab an appetizer and a small salad as I wasn’t too hungry. But you ONLY get a salad when ordering with an entree as I mentioned. That is something that is interesting to me. Guess I better learn their system… The Eggplant Tower: excellent presentation, the eggplant melted in my mouth and it was a perfect pairing with the lightly oiled greens. They were delicate and delicious as well. It was a perfect size as an entree! Well done on that beautiful creation! My wife has Celiac and so ordered the salmon. It was perfectly cooked! The only thing was she asked for more of the sauce or something and what came out was fabulous. It was a creamy garlic butter sort of thing and utterly delicious! The restaurant should include that as an extra for the fish (or anything else). Or create a new appetizer with that as a dip! The sauce was very creamy with a simple combination of delicate flavors. It was to die for! The server was THE BEST, a fast talking young guy, who seemed like one of the owners as he ‘owned’ the menu. Ask to have Lucky as your waiter! The food came out fast, hot and made to perfection! I offer reviews for countless restaurants. I have to say, how thrilled I was to finally find a restaurant as truly unique in concepts, beautiful presentations with outstanding tastes! Living 1.5 hours away will make my visits less often than I would like, but we will be back for more, AND will eventually try the desserts. Congratulations on an outstanding restaurant and food design, and so happy that we met The Garlic Restaurant!

Whole place smells moldy, the salmon was dry, the mussels tasted like black licorice from the Sambucca they make with it. Not impressed at all. Service was awesome great staff. I wish they offered gluten free pasta and bread. The place needs deep cleaning and a better chef.