Riccardo's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Amherstburg

We dined here in Friday evening, July 26th. When my wife and I saw all the positive reviews about this place, we thought it would be somewhere new to try while visiting Amherstburg. Huge mistake! I have eaten at a lot of Italian restaurants throughout my years on this earth and this was absolutely the worst of them all! First of all there is no direction when you come to the restaurant as far as coming inside if you have a reservation or waiting outside by the sign that says, please wait here. Apparently that sign is for people waiting for the patio or people with no reservation. Upon entering the restaurant after waiting outside for 10 minutes with no one coming out, I went in and there is no hostess stand or anything. One of the waitresses approached me and asked if I had a reservation and I told her yes. We were seated right next to the counter where they do the cooking. Also right there is the machine that prints out the tickets for the orders so we were constantly hearing that throughout the course of dinner. We started with calamari which was unseasoned and definitely frozen. No flavor at all. My wife ordered the pork chops and I had the Italian trio. We received our salads prior to our meal and were just given a bottle of creamy Italian dressing to put on our salad. That was it! No other choices were offered. When we got our entrées, her pork chops were unseasoned and the potato pieces that came with it were very odd tasting, but lacked seasoning as well as the pork chops. My Italian trio consisted of veal Parmesan, some chicken breast with a creamy sauce with mushrooms and lasagna. The veal patty was frozen for the veal Parmesan, the chicken and sauce was bland and unseasoned, as well as the lasagna and the veal Parmesan. I didn’t see any ricotta in the lasagna, just sauce and noodles. This was absolutely the worst meal I’ve had in a restaurant years! No flavor to the food whatsoever!! Maybe I have different standards than other people, but it was unbelievable how there was just a consistency of unseasoned food with both of our meals as well as the calamari. If you choose to go here, do so at your our discretion but I would not ever come back here or recommend this place to anybody at all. The atmosphere was unenjoyable. The food was horrible, but our server was nice. I can’t remember her name, but she was the only highlight of the experience. My wife also wanted to get a glass of Moscato, but they were out of it. How can you be out of a wine that you list on your wine list and not even let the servers know ahead of time. One more note. While we seated at our table, we saw several open tables inside the restaurant, but people that were standing outside for 20+ minutes were still not seated at any of them. I can’t say enough negative things about this place!!!! A total waste of money and time. I rate it...

My husband & I are never going back. We are not impressed. My bread plates were dirty. We had to send them back. They had an issue with the bread. We had to wait quite a while for it. You are supposed to get a choice of soup or salad, I chose soup, and they were out. Told me after I ordered and waited 10 minutes that they had no soup. Italian restaurant didn't have wedding soup or real parmazon cheese. I had to shake dry cheese onto my grocery store quality noodles. Even the paper was the sheer variety, and I don't even use this at home. I use peppercorns and real fresh parmason. They said its homemade lasagna. First, it's not oven baked, but made with grocery store quality noodles. I make noodles. These are not homemade. The lasagna is slapped together individually. With sloppy sauce and a bit of buttered ricotta. Very dissapointed.. If you go to Mario's, it is more authentic & they at least grate your cheese & grind your pepper..... The food was mediocre, overpriced for what it is. The veal parmazon uses some sort of processed mozzarella... I don't know what was wrong with it. I am so disappointed. Never going back - shortage of overworked waitresses as well.Poor girls. This may impress a non'italian..l grew up with Italians. Never again. For the price, no, nothing was authentic. It was like fast food Italian. It was average food and very un-italian because italian food is never average when done right. I don't know if it is because of inflation, but if so, realize we are spending our hard earned money on this too. My husband grew up here and doesn't know what happened to Ricardos. I told him that maybe it has always been bad, and he has false memory. It really was a disappointment. I wouldn't doubt if the mushroom sauce on the chicken Italiano was just a mushroom soup mix , or something from a can, with added mushrooms as an afterthought. That's...

SAVE ROOM FOR DESSERT- the chocolate cakes is incredible!!!

Another update: Their beautiful patio overlooking the water is open for the season! Server Teri provided great, attentive, friendly service. We spoke with Chef Bob while he was busy stirring the homemade sauces and making their soup. The steaming pots of deliciousness emitted mouth watering aromas. Today’s house made arancini were again off the charts! And the veal scallopini was so amazing, I was tempted to lick my plate clean (I didn’t!!!). I had the fettuccini egg noodles smothered in the same mushroom cream sauce that’s used on the veal as my accompaniment. It was outstanding!!! 6 stars if I could!!

UPDATE: Still deliciously awesome! Excellent

UPDATE: Still deliciously awesome! Excellent service from Stephanie who was attentive, friendly and kind! Highly recommend the Carbonara…and no one makes better Arancini (rice balls).

It was the delicious smells emanating from this place that attracted our attention while strolling through Amherstburg. We discovered this casual, unassuming restaurant with the open kitchen, which served up outstanding, delicious Italian fare! The rice balls were great, and wish they bottled their house made salad dressing! It was a toss up between which was better, the lunchtime veal scallopini or the veal parmigiana as both excellent and so reasonably priced. Really excited for their patio to open in the warmer weather as their water front location is beautiful. Worth the short drive along the River from Windsor! A...