what the hell happened to Sette?

my boyfriend and i ate there over a year ago and it was DELICIOUS. the pasta- perfect, the pizza- incredible, beet salad- so good you wanted to order TWO.... and then everytime we've been back it has declined as rapidly to the point where tonight we wanted to go home and make an entire other dinner just so we'd be even remotely satisfied.

three times ago we ordered a pasta salad which turned out to be, to our surprise when we got the bill, $27 (and of course they continue to never mention the prices for the specials) which was incredibly mediocre... we left feeling cheated.

then, as al di la is closed til the 7th, we decided to go back to Sette tonight. BIG MISTAKE. The formally incredible beet salad was mono-note in taste. the beets not as succulent and delicious but chopped smaller and drowning in oil, the 'special' salad sure wasn't worth the $11... again drowning in oil and no 'hues and tones' in it and then the pesto... blaaaaaah. the pasta itself seemed grainy, slightly overcooked with no chewyness or texture outside of soft sandpaper and the pesto itself was, again, so under ordinary we could barely even finish it... and how difficult is pesto anyway??

we didn't even bother staying for dessert.

next time if al di la is closed we're going to the deli on 7th ave and, i think, 11th and getting their homemade pasta and pesto (either basil or sun-dried tomato... both equally amazing) for less than the entree at Sette.

has anyone else had this really disappointing decline with Sette's food?
it gets progressively worse each time we go...