Taste of Italy — Restaurant in Carthage

TL;DR: Don't come here. Food is tasteless. You can get better ambience in an airplane hanger. Owner seems to have some questional ideals.

We found ourselves in Carthage on March 8th, 2024 to get our wedding license. We had heard a lot of good things about this place and the reviews looked fine. I wish I had read the negative reviews, not because their content but due to the owners response - that would have stopped me from coming in the first place.

The location is strange - attached to precious moments. We can look past that. You walk in - what is this place? Was it a warehouse? A meeting hall? It's huge, total empty space with 30 feet tall ceilings with seating, some decor here and there on the walls. Lights are flickering in several places. It was empty when we came in, so we were the first to be seated. We were seated directly under a flickering light. The server was extremely kind the entire time - she did wonderful. I requested to move because of the light, no big deal, thankfully.

Seats were fine, table cloths were cheap plastic. The menus are well designed and pretty - printed on nice paper. The server was wonderful - kind and quick to requests. This, however, concludes all of the nice things I have to say about this place.

The bread was delivered with marina sauce. It looked chunky and was off colored - I genuinely thought it was an alla panna (vodka sauce). I tried it... My God - it tasted like vomit. Thankfully the bread was palletable, but I couldn't believe how bad the marina sauce was. I initially ordered spaghetti and meat balls, but after we received our appetizer - mozeralla sticks - it came with another serving of Mariana sauce. The sauce was broken. It was entirely separated - I had to explicitly ask to make sure it was mariana because you can't tell by looking at it. I endeavored and tried the separated vomit sauce in hope the first was a fluke - nope! Still vomit sauce. Just separated this time. Mozeralla sticks were fine, I guess. They use a sweet garnish - not quite sure what - which gives the breading a funnel cake-esque taste.

After this, I decided that there was no way I was taking a chance on the tomato / red sauce - we hadn't got our food yet - I requested Alfredo instead.

The salads were fine. Lettuce was fresh. The Caesars sauce was strangely sweet, but it was fine.

Got the Alfredo... Man. I can't emphasize this enough... There was no flavor. It was like I was eating a noodle and water soup. The sauce was extremely thin, the noodles were NOT al dente as the owner claims in his responses, they were soft. It's hard to call the dish gross because it literally did not have any flavor. Just the starch from the noodles.

At this point, I had looked at the negative reviews and saw the owners very snarky remarks - implying his customers didn't know "authentic Italian" and how they "should go to Olive garden." It was clear that taking criticism wasn't this guys strong suit, so I decided to foot the bill and move on. Even if offered to be remade, I wouldn't have wanted anything from there.

It's really unfortunate because the majority of the reviews for this place are stellar. I'm not sure if we caught a bad day, but the owners responses to criticism is unacceptable regardless.

If you're planning to make a trip for this place, I highly recommend you make the trek to Pittsburg and go to Napoli's instead - a whole in the wall that doesn't make you feel like you're visiting a liminal space, extremely good authentic Italian, and stellar service.

Or, as the owner recommends, maybe go to Olive Garden. Even their food is better than this place.

Edit: in response to the owners "you are mad you didn't get what you wanted":

Yes. I am mad I did not get decent food. :) I paid for my meal and tipped...

Boy, this is a tough review to write, because overall, the ratings for this restaurant are higher than average and the locals seem to love this place (two people recommended we visit). We just really disliked most aspects of our visit. Perhaps my husband and I have a different experience with Italian food (east coast, Baltimore's Little Italy, especially), but this was a great disappointment. The tomato soup was specifically mentioned as a crowd pleaser and we simply didn't care for it - it seemed to be very heavy in dried herbs. It was just okay for us. The appetizer mozzarella sticks were okay, but nothing special. My chicken dish was very disappointing - the chicken was overcooked and the sauce seemed to have the same over-abundance of dried herbs, while also being a bit thin/watery. My husband also didn't care for his veal parmesan dish. The meat had no crispy crust on it and he too, didn't care for the sauce. We got lasagna to-go and it seemed to be lacking meat and was a very thin stack, unlike what we would expect. All of the tomato-based sauces and soup we tried lacked the color we would expect, and the resulting taste lacked a brightness as well. While I typically enjoy a BYOB restaurant, we didn't KNOW it was BYOB, and therefore didn't come prepared with our own bottle of wine to enjoy with dinner (I didn't see any reference to BYOB on the FB page or any posted menu). Finally, the decor and ambiance of the restaurant felt like a poorly decorated convention hall space or a fancy fire hall, at best. We understand that the restaurant may be moving to a new location in the near future, so we hope this is a short-term limitation. Staff were quite pleasant, but lacked knowledge of the two dishes we inquired about ("I don't eat blah blah") and lacked training that would be expected at this price point. We went into this meal really expecting a lot, based on what we read and heard, but left very...

TLDR: Do not eat here!

((EDIT: Response to the owner- I know what "Bless your Heart" means! Extremely rude of you to say this. I may live in Minnesota but I wasn't born there. I know southern slang! I never once asked for you to comp my meal, I explicitly told you that I will pay for my meal. I told you "I ordered it and even though I did't care for it I am still paying for it. It shouldn't come out of your pocket because I didn't like it, I will pay for what I ordered". You refused, Nor did I say that this was my wife's opinion! My review is just that, MINE!))

This is located at a Precious Moments museum. A very questionable location. The dining room is in a small, unwelcoming conference room and it is extremely tacky. The "Live Music" is an old man playing Disney movie soundtrack tunes. In an Italian restaurant you would expect Italian dining music.

Now, let's get to the food... I ordered the Chef Combo. I took a few bites of each plated item on my dish. The pasta was cooked properly, the tomato sauce tasted good, the meat on the other hand was absolutely disgusting...the worst I have EVER eaten. I had the Tomato Basil soup as my side, this was very good, I will say that the soup and rolls were the only good part of this place.

The chef/manager (0 Stars) was constantly barking orders to the wait staff the entire time, which was extremely appalling. He also had my wife second guessing her menu choice which is terrible due to the fact that my wife has Celiacs Disease and has to eat gluten free. He does not allow the wait staff to give you a check with the total on it. The wait staff said he doesn't allow it. Completely unprofessional and appears to be untrusting of his staff.

If Chef Ramsey ever stepped foot here he would walk right out!!! The wait staff (5 Stars) was extremely pleasant. But, I cannot, in good faith, recommend this establishment to anyone. This dump is not worth your...