Barzini's Italiano — Restaurant in Anoka

We had a positive experience at this restaurant a week ago, with one exception: the food. I ordered the angel hair pasta and the flavor was good. But they CHOPPED the pasta! Anyone knowing anything about Italian pasta knows this is an egregious culinary blunder. I wondered why I wasn't given a spoon for twirling the pasta as I am accustomed to doing. The chef explained to me that they don't give out soup spoons at the place setting because they chop the pasta, which made some sense, but then again I have never had spaghetti ANYWHERE where they did this. I spoke with a friend who is a retired Michelin chef and she said this was completely out of bounds and unprofessional. I went online to find out more, and I learned that in Italian cooking to chop the pasta is to destroy the nature of the pasta, the design of the pasta, the spirit of the pasta. It is mean to be twirled (without a spoon, btw, which was new to me. So I knew right there that what the chef did was wrong.

I wanted to leave a message on their website but the comments section did not function. I left my comment about this in their "Make a Reservation" section and on Facebook. A few days later I received an officious sounding note saying they would pass on my comments. I expected at the very least an apology but none was forthcoming. I asked for a coupon for another meal there because we really did enjoy the location and the overall ambience, but none was forthcoming. I told them I had not yet gone public with my concern hoping they would work with me on this, but over a week later no one contacted me other than the "bland" Facebook comment acknowledging receipt of my message. For this poor communication and disfunctional website alone we will not return to the restaurant. But because of the way they mishandled the pasta, as an Italian restaurant they should know better, and for that they should not even be allowed to call themselves an...

What a Gem! Far better than I expected from the street view... the food here is well worth the stop. The ambiance is well worth the stop. and if that isn't enough, the service here is well worth the stop! Barzini's is AWESOME! We had the Steak Cheese Tortellini Alfredo and The House Spaghetti and both were pretty out of this world.

The steak was tender and seasoned perfectly, the alfredo sauce was rich and plentiful. Angel Hair pasta for spaghetti is perfect and really makes it easy to eat it all. The 'all you can eat' breadsticks are buttery and just garlicky enough to not overpower everything else you've got going on (and great dipped in a side of red meat sauce)! We were offered a small sample of the soup and, while I didn't have room for a full bowl, I will likely get that as my meal on the next trip... it was really killer. I also want to try the meatloaf, after hearing the owner talk about it, it's gotta be killer!

the place is small, the menu is small, but the food and service are HUGE! A small menu just means they have time to perfect everything and don't have the need to store/freeze a bunch of food - a really great thing,...

We decided to try this restaurant since we live so close and it looked like a good place. The atmosphere is cute and very small with a big screen TV playing the Godfather movies. The service is excellent and very friendly. The food was just not it. It tasted like everything was from jars or cans and everything was drowning in oil. I got the steak bites which were cooked well, but soaked in oil and not super flavorful. The green beans with bacon were pretty good, but the mashed potatoes and gravy were like they were from a jar. My family gor the shrimp scampi and shrimp Alfredo which were both un-appetizing. My teen, who eats almost anything, didn't like his Alfredo. The tiramisu was probably the worst thing on the menu. It's one of my favorite deserts and this place just didn't make it well at all. To spend $100 on dinner for it to taste like it was from jars was hard to justify.

Overall, we won't be going back there. I had high hopes for the place, but it just didn't hit the mark.

If you like bland food that tastes like it was from a jar, then you'll...