Gia Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Charlottesville

First time we’ve been here since they changed their name. Everything else is supposedly the same.

My previous reviews as I recall were running probably around 3.5-4 stars and as I recall my biggest complaint was the noise here on a busy night was deafening. I could not wait to get out of there and it’s probably one of the reasons we hadn’t been back. I don’t know if they have done anything about the “roar” level of a packed place. Something to absorb sound would be good. There was an obnoxious customer drinking at the bar this time who the server seemed to know well enough for a hug, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I vowed years ago to never come back here on a busy weekend night.

My wife and I came for lunch on a Thursday about 1:30. Our server was OK…attentive and the food came out in a good time frame, and so was the speed at which we got our check.

We were disappointed with our meals this lunch. They weren’t bad, just not very good. My wife had the butternut squash ravioli special. She said the pasta was tough, she had a hard time cutting it with her fork. The flavor was OK, nothing impressive, nothing terrible.

I had the fish and chips special. Bland and not crunchy at all. Didn’t even seem to be salt in the batter.

The Sicilian potatoes, AKA hand cut chips were cooked well, but again, bland, and lifeless on flavor.

What are supposed to be garlic knots were not very “garlic” at all, bland and somewhat stale. These have always been hit or miss here. We’ve had them as hard as croutons before. They clearly don’t sample their own food before serving it.

The lasagna we took home for dinner was a really good-sized portion. Enough for two with a side salad for sure. It was again, nothing remarkable. Not quite as bland as the other food we had but not much seasoning. The tomato sauce did not seem cooked down very much and there wasn’t much “Italian” seasoning in it. Garlic, oregano…nothing seemed to stand out. There wasn’t enough meat and cheese balanced against the pasta. A heavy dose of grated parm upon reheating at home helped jazz it up a bit. This was the skill level of the average home cook in my opinion. We make lasagna that blows this away at home, but then again we have a trick it seems Italians haven’t figured out…use Italian sausage instead of ground beef!

And finally, those take-home salads. We understand restaurants like to throw huge chunks of tomatoes and cucumbers on salads, this is annoying enough, but this was clearly a salad mix from a bag…the bottom of the bag. We literally had lettuce crumbs (along with larger pieces) that were turning brown. I had to cull the salads, cut the cucumber up into reasonable sized pieces, trash the unripe hothouse tomato slices for some grape tomatoes we had on hand, and reconstruct a decent salad at home.

If you order carryout here, watch any salads in the bag. They will put your ice-cold salad right on top of a steaming hot packaged dish. Get them out and ask for another bag unless you want a wilted salad by the time you get home.

I suggest people stay away from the specials. We have been consistently disappointed with them over the years. Stick with the basic old Italian menu items and the pizza, stromboli, stuff like that. The skill level in this kitchen is not there for the finer stuff. I have eaten at all the restaurants that occupied this building and did stainless steel work in the kitchen for Maricella’s when it was originally built. There was better food here back in the day, for sure. 5 stars from some...

I really hate giving a bad review, especially to a local place that others seem to really like. I appreciate other people's honest reviews, though, so here goes... We've given this restaurant three chances because we really wanted to support local and were so hoping the first bad meal was a fluke. Our first visit (about 2 years ago) we ordered chicken marsala and eggplant parm. The young man who served us was fantastic. The food was lackluster. They claim their sauce is home made but to us it looked and tasted like canned tomato paste. We decided to give it a second try about 6 months ago - again wanting to support local. This time I figured I'd try classic hard-to-ruin Italian and ordered the Trio Pasta (lasagna, manicotti, stuffed shell). While it was an improvement over the first time, it was still nothing to get excited about. Interestingly, I can remember the great server from 2 years ago, but not the person from 6 months ago. It was a female and while not terrible, she was forgettable. The third time I tried it by default only because we had a group luncheon there. I played it safe (or so I thought) and ordered the grilled chicken salad. I was expecting a sliced grilled chicken breast on a bed of salad or something relatively close to that. You know... actually grilled. What I got was rubbery chicken pieces pan sautéed in an overabundance of some kind of brown salty sauce. I couldn't eat it - it was awful. The server was equally bad. The restaurant was nearly empty except for the 7 or 8 of us yet we waited for water, we waited for drinks, we waited to order, we waited for meals (half of us were served 10-15 minutes after the rest), we waited for the check, and we waited to pay. The person hosting us ended up having to leave because it was taking so long, so a second person took over paying. She ended up having to go stand at the checkout to pay, and STILL had to say 'can someone take this please - I need to leave' after standing there and being ignored for several minutes. A few who needed to-go containers had to go get them at the checkout after the rest of the party had already left - except for the person who was still waiting to pay. There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of service. We will not be giving it...

Having a hard time with this one. Very mixed feelings about multiple aspects. Some food really good, some pretty good, some a little disappointing. Service, some good some a little lacking.

Appearance & Service was nice with a pleasant atmosphere and acceptable comfort. This is right outside the "lake" so pretty busy with family dining and can be a little loud. Wait staff seemed fairly attentive and service was provided, though some aspects came off as deficient. Drinks and food where constantly served to the wrong person at the table requiring a lot of reshuffling. Even when trying to direct the server to the correct placement, indications were ignored and still mis-served. Drinks were kept full and food and check were provided in a timely manner.

The Chicken Tortellini had a very creamy and flavorful alfredo sauce with tender beef tortellini and some sliced grilled chicken mixed in. Eggplant Parm sub with Sicilian Potatoes, the potatoes are lightly fried with some sautéed onions and were very good. The sub was well prepared with an appropriate amount of sauce and nicely crisp eggplant. The Rollatini was also very well prepared with excellent flavor and sufficient in serving size, though the penne sauce was bland with no depth of flavor. The Sausage Pepper Dinner was also well cooked and seasoned, though its spaghetti was a little over cooked and the sauce seemed to have little to no seasoning.

Overall it was an acceptable meal with service a little off, though this is a first impression, I would hope it was just an off day and would improve at a...