Gianni's at the Former Versace Mansion
One of the inspirations and motivations for this Miami trip is to visit the former mansion of Gianni Versace, the Italian designer who was murdered at his doorstep. The mansion is located in the Art Deco district, and it offers some very interesting designs, including pebbled mosaic walls, storied history, and some interesting statues onsite. The lunch area is located adjacent to the pool area. We were able to book a reservation for 2 for 1:00 PM on a Sunday afternoon fairly easily a few weeks in advance. We were fortunately able to check in about 30 minutes early, and they seated us pretty quickly.
Ambiance & Service
The pool area has many tables set up for dining, both at the same level and in the upper level where you descend down the stairs. As expected, this whole area had a plethora of women who loved to take selfies and pictures of the pool with them standing in influencer-like poses. Over the speakers, they played electronic music, to reflect the club-like atmosphere. What was also weird was that there were some hotel guests that decided to take a dip into the pool within feet of where people were eating. It was weird observing it. I suppose since the rooms cost $1,000 to $2,000 per night, it’s not surprising that the clientele would want to show off their persona.
The service was pretty quick and straight forward. For the entire menu, they ask that you order everything all at once, which clearly meant that they were intending to turn over tables quickly. The food in general came out very quick, as if it was prepared in advance.
Food
We opted for the lunch menu for $39.50 per person, which included an appetizer, entree, and dessert. You can also order a’la carte off their main menu, but I overheard the minimum spend per person is $40 per person.
The Bread was fairly basic with olive oil. It was served room temperature, and it was soft such that you can dip into the olive oil and soak it easily.
The Passion in the Mansion ($20) came with passionfruit vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup, a dragon fruit slice, and topped with prosecco. My partner enjoyed this cocktail simply because it had all the sweetened ingredients they enjoy tasting.
The Eggplant Parmigiana came with crispy eggplant layers with tomato sauce, basil, and parmesan cheese. This was probably one of the more tasty things in this lunch menu tasting. It was pretty basic, but I enjoyed the crispy cheese crust. The tomato sauce wasn’t anything special.
The Gianni’s Salad came with baby arugula, cherry tomato, avocado, onions, cucumber, lemon dressing, and shaved parmesan dressing. The ingredients of the salad were decent quality, though I thought the lemon dressing was pretty mediocre.
The Chicken Milanese came with breaded chicken served with arugula salad and cherry tomato. If there’s one thing that I was thinking about, it’s that this literally had little to no seasoning. Sure, they had salt crystals on the side if you wanted to sprinkle on, but generally the chicken was very bland. On the brighter side, the crust was nice and crispy. The chicken was fairly juicy and tender. However, simply the dish had no seasoning, period. The arugula salad was aggressively salted for some reason, so it was salty and nearly inedible for me.
The Grilled Branzino came with grilled Mediterranean branzino served with baby vegetables. The branzino was pretty basic and also lacked seasoning.
The Dessert came with brownie and passionfruit sorbet. Fortunately, the brownie was decent. It was a bit on the sweeter side, but if you dip it into the passionfruit sorbet, it levels the sweetness. If you try the sorbet by itself, you can taste that it was actually tart with added sugar to it. If anything, it tasted OK, but far from delicious.
Overall Impression
Gianni’s at the former Versace Mansion was a pretty mediocre lunch. The ingredients were decent, but the preparation was bland and not tasty at all. Price wise, it’s definitely not expensive, but I think I would prefer trying other restaurants in the area if it weren’t for the allure of eating in the mansion.
Yelp & Google Jabs
Food is delicious, you can also upgrade or order other options that’s not on the prix fixe menu. I love everything with gold flakes so I got their cocktail with gold flakes in it. Its refreshing!
This Elitist from San Diego was definitely the target audience for this restaurant. Paying an additional hidden cost for gold flakes is what attracted this person here. This person is the epitome of the type of diner the restaurant adores to attract.
Lunch at Gianni’s actually did exceed my expectations! The view was really gorgeous and perfect for taking pictures, so definitely give yourself extra time for that. The food was good as well and we all enjoyed our dishes.
The view had many diners in the way, especially if you sit further away from the pool. You can get up and take pics near the pool if you like, but if you want far pictures, there will be some impedances. This is yet another Elitist super-positive review, which showed that they cared more about the view of the pool than the food. Unfortunately, the food was not even considered decent by people from other non-NYC cities.
Revisions
- Dec 21, 2025 - Initial revision.