Leo's Italian Social — Restaurant in Charlotte

My wife and I attended Leo's for lunch this past Saturday (12 August). We were immediately seated in a spacious booth, and the waitress presented herself within a minute or two, taking our drink orders. She was gracious and efficient throughout our meal.

For appetisers, I ordered the lobster bisque, while my wife requested the caprese salad. The bisque was excellent, rich, creamy, and the sherry was perfectly blended, so that it accentuated the soup, not overpower it. The basil and tomato of my wife's caprese salad were fresh and the mozzarella was smooth and piquant. Her salad paired nicely with the bread brought to our table.

For entrées, I ordered the lasagna; my wife, the sirloin steak. I usually avoid ordering lasagna in restaurants because, most times, the lasagna I make at home is better. But, this time it was a worthwhile choice. Leo's lasagna was neatly layered, making it easy to cut (elusive lasagna is a peeve of mine). The bolognese sauce was hearty with a nice combination of beef and Italian sausage. (There may have been some veal in the admix; I didn't detect any of veal's characteristic bitterness, but my palate may have missed it.) I prefer more cheese with my lasagna than what I received here, but as a classic lasagna, Leo's was prepared excellently.

The real star of our meal was my wife's sirloin. A very nice cut of meat, both in size and in quality. Cooked precisely to the temp my wife requested. Tender enough to cut with her butter knife. And robust in flavour. I sampled it (mainly because there was too much for my wife to finish), and it was as good as, or better than, steaks I have received in some five-star steakhouses.

The only downcheck to our lunch, and it's a minor one, was that it took a little too long---long enough for the delay to be noticeable---for our entrées to follow our appetisers. Frankly, if it took a some extra time to ensure the superb quality of the dishes presented to us, I'm O.K. with that. Accuracy is always more important than speed.

The décor was bright and airy, with light woods and simple table settings. Everything was clean and polished. There was a subtle classiness about the atmosphere. One thing I particularly noted with approval is that there was a decent amount of distance between the tables. They weren't jammed together as is common in many fine dining restaurants these days.

We will be returning to Leo's. There are a few other things on the menu I'm itching to try, and my wife will definitely order the...

I really wanted to love this place. Would like to give them the benefit of the doubt here but they made it impossible with how terrible the service was. We went on a Wednesday night.

We got seated and it took 15-20 minutes for our server to come to the table. She took our drink order and we asked for caprese salad. Then she came back and said she forgot what we ordered for an appetizer. No biggie. We told her and ordered soup also. Our cocktails never showed. We received our soup and salad all at once. The food was okay, but we hoped to get more balsamic and salt. There was nothing on the table and our waitress disappeared so we could not get anyone to get it for us. Our cocktails were still not there and we finished the food. Then probably a full hour after we ordered the cocktails, the manager came and brought them saying he would take care of them and take them off the bill to “buy our happiness”. We thought that was great and very fair. We waited for the waitress to come back about 15 more minutes later and we proceeded to order tiramisu since they were comping the cocktails. The tiramisu was really good and a generous portion. It did not make up for the lack of service though. We got the check and they also did NOT remove the cocktails. So we still paid $26 on drinks that showed up after we ate. It was a god awful experience and we will not be returning.

Customer advice: If you have a large party, make sure you have the proper staff to handle the rest of the place. It was not even very crowded, so if one table can throw staff off there are not enough people working.

We dine out a lot and consider ourselves pretty easygoing customers. Plus I come from the restaurant world and am pretty understanding. Yet, this was one of the worst experiences we have had in...

My partner and I made a reservation for 12/31 at 7:15pm. We arrived promptly on time to be told by the hostess that they were at full capacity and it would be a few minutes until they were able to seat us. We understood as NYE can be overwhelming for restaurant staff. Around 7:30, the hostess came to the bar to seat us and walked us towards the back room before saying that she had made a mistake and there wasn’t a table available quite yet and we would have to wait at the bar for longer. She asked us if we had a seating preference (booth, table, etc.) and we expressed that we would be okay with whatever was available first as long as we didn’t have to sit at the bar. My partner and I sat at the bar until 7:50, while we watched several walk-in pairs be seated before us. We spoke to the hostess who immediately seated us after confronting her about the situation. We were sat at a back table and waited until 8:15 before deciding to leave and take our service elsewhere. In the time that we waited at the table, not a single server came to offer water or tell us that they would be with us shortly. This is by the bar the WORST customer service experience I have ever had both in CLT and in other states I’ve lived in. We understand that NYE is busy, but to have a reservation booked in advanced and be received with such poor service is egregious. We had been excited to try Leo’s after living in South Park for a few months, but I would highly recommend not wasting your time and visiting other delightful restaurants in the area such as Moon Thai, Main 131, or...