Mario's Italian Ristorante — Restaurant in Charleston

Update: I was so excited to go back to my favorite authentic Italian restaurant in Charleston SC, and well, I'm assuming tourism got to them. This time...sucked. It didn't matter how friendly I was to the waitress or how obvious we were patiently waiting. It appeared the waitstaff didn't give a .......

I looked up, and everybody in the restaurant had that exasperated look on their face patiently waiting for their check or something.

I asked for my favorite spaghetti and meatballs. And I got linguine with vodka sauce and "two meat balls". It was a little discouraging because the waitstaff seemed to gaslight me. I'm like uh this isn't spaghetti and meatballs, and she's like well you asked for spicy, so i ordered you the rigatoni, which is spicy, and something something. I'm like, but this is linguine, not spaghetti. She just looked at me blankly. Ohhhkay.... So that was annoying. We never got bread. I normally order the amazing Tiramisu, but we waited so long for the waitress, and she never even asked us if we wanted dessert, so didn't bother ordering dessert.. It is a bummer because this is no longer my favorite italian restaurant.

I still love going to a place that treats you like family, even if you're a stranger. I no longer felt that here. Bummer.

Previous feedback years ago.

I wanted good spaghetti and meatballs,  and I didn't want to make it myself. I had a WONDERFUL experience at Mario's Italian Ristorante!

I ordered the Caprese salad as a starter, and they brought out bread with an oil and vinegar dipper. Excellent! The bread had a slight burn on the outside,  but thankfully it did not deter from the taste. It had a crispy outer shell with a fabulous warm soft center.  Mouth watering bread.

The caprese salad had the perfect amount of basil, and it was super fresh and flavorful! There is a great assortment of spirits behind the bar. The atmosphere is very chill. A lot of Italian conversations going on around me.  Definitely has a more local vibe than overrun with tourists. If you're an Italian visiting the U.S. and feeling a little homesick, I highly suggest coming here for some comfort food, conversation, and laughs with the friendly staff.

I do not normally order dessert, but how can you pass up made-in-house Tiramisu? Perfectly soaked ladyfingers. Perfect balance of flavors. Highly recommend! And yes.. I was happy with the spaghetti and meatballs.  Meatballs were beef with a slight sausage texture, but not overly spicy or with too much gristle texture. The sauce was on the slight sweet side, and with a pinch of salt and pepper was perfect to my palette.  I'm always grateful when prepared food isn't Too salty. I highly recommend this restaurant.  Wonderful experience.  Thank you!

My tab for a glass of wine, starter, dinner, and dessert for one person...

We came here tonight from out of town, hoping to have a wonderful dinner on the famous King Street. We were very dissapointed, the seafood tasted rancid. In a replacement of the seafood we reordered choosing chicken parmessan, a dish no Italian restaurant should screw up. It came out burnt. The wait staff were kind and gracious. Taylor was a very busy and perfect waiter. Just watching how hard he worked during our service, it's easy to tell his future is bright. However we felt compelled to leave a review, because we very much so could have gotten sick tonight. King Street is probably the most famous street in the entirety of South Carolina. I would consider that a blessing to have a restaurant on this famous road. For there to be an obvious problem with the food quality is sad. Entrees coming out in less than 5 minutes, is not always a good thing. The balsamic reduction was lovely, the bread was delicious. We loved the tomato caprese. One thing we wished were different (at no fault of the restaurant) is a group of drunk women were yelling so severely, we could no longer hear the music, and were almost screaming ourselves to speak to one another during dinner. The yelling was that horrible, they should have been asked to calm down or leave. Every restaurant i know has a bar, but these women were screaming as if in a night club, which in turn made the rest of the customers dining, resort to yelling as well. This restaurant is a white cloth fine wine Italian restaurant, so I was surprised no one asked these women to calm down. They were on a different level of drunk, to the point it was affecting everyone else's experience. I think the owner should be encouraged to not be afraid to give people like that a small warning. People who get that inebriated have heard it before, so I would encourage this restaurant not to be afraid of that in the future. I also would think people would love to know the owners backstory on their menu. It would be wonderful to read about this local owner and when they started their business on their menu. To be on King Street, is to be apart of history. I hope the owner does that to his menu, it's something heartfelt, and something customers...

Some of my review could be on Uber; but uber did not cook and decide to send out overpriced tasteless pasta and meatballs to me.

I ordered the Tagliatelle Alfredo Pasta and for $22 let me tell you; the level of disappointment for getting something akin to Kroger brand Alfredo sauced pasta minus flavor was mind boggling. The pasta was tasteless, the sauce had less flavor than water, the mushrooms were, without exaggeration, worse than canned canned mushrooms. The chicken was tough, tasteless, and unimaginative.

I have literally eaten chef boyardee canned chicken Alfredo with better flavor and higher regards.

The 3 meatballs I got were sloppy. They were over seasoned with salt and parmesean cheese that they were nearly inedible... thank goodness of the two parties this pertains to; at least the customer knows how to cook and could salvage these. The meatballs tasted of freezer burn and smothered dreams.

The bread that was sent with the meatballs is literally from a $2.89 dinner roll you can take home and reheat from IGA or in this case, likely, Aldi's clearance rack. Slap some chemical fake garlic butter on it and call it good... what could go wrong?

The only saving grace to this order, but still definitely not worth eating trash to get to the desert, is the pre-made connoli that they have outsourced; killed with chocolate; and carelessly thrown into a to-go box as a $9 desert.

This is one restaurant I will never order from again. Perhaps Ramsay can help if we submit this restaurant to kitchen nightmares.

And from what I can see from previous 1&2 star reviews; clearly the owner knows these fails and has no problem being rude and condescending to disgruntled customers rather than improving their food and service.

I cannot wait to read the whiney comeback, arrogant, and rude reply that he decides to drop for my...