Sal's Caffe Italia — Restaurant in Charlottesville

We were walking around the Downtown Mall area trying to figure out what we wanted to eat for dinner. We were reading all of the menus and it was between this place and Miller's and we chose the Italian restaurant since I love Italian food. The menu has the basic Italian foods on it and some different things I don't see at every Italian restaurant we go to. Our favorite place we have ever been to for Italian food is in North Carolina and everything is made and cooked fresh. We are always looking for the next best place though!

The staff was very nice. We did wait a little while for the food but they did have a lot of people sitting outside that they were waiting on as well. We chose to sit inside.

We thought it was odd that no free bread was served with our meal like pretty much every other Italian restaurant we have ever been to has had - free bread/bread sticks with some type of sauce or butter. Bread would have gone really well with our pastas.

The portion sizes were maybe a touch under what we usually get for the price.

We ordered the mozzarella sticks as an appetizer when we placed our regular order. They were oddly shaped like triangles. It was definitely different. I felt like there was not an even mixture of cheese to breading ratio though. The marinara sauce was good but nothing to write home about.

He got the Bolognese that has beef and sausage in it. Little bitty bits that you get with gravy but was expecting chunks like other places have served, it was hard to taste the meat since they were so small.

I got the chicken alfredo. The noodles were definitely cooked homemade. I believe the sauce was too. The chicken was really tender. Maybe a bit too much fat/gristle on some pieces though.

Overall, it was pretty good food but not great. The noodles and sauce were good but nothing was stand out. It was about average for us compared to other Italian restaurants we have been to. I can only do whole stars but I would give this place...

I’ll start this review by saying I absolutely love Sal’s-the food, the service, the atmosphere is always top notch. I visited the restaurant with friends on 5/4/24 and was greeted by the always friendly hostess who immediately put a smile on our faces. At 6 months pregnant, I was struggling with some heartburn and mild nausea as we took our seats. A simple remedy that is helpful for this ailment, hot water…easy, right? As the waitress came to take our drink orders I was told they did not have hot water as their machine was broken, but was offered coffee. After a couple follow up questions I was ultimately told hot water is not something that could be accommodated. As our meal continued i found myself wondering how they boil pasta, why there were used tea bags in the bathroom trash can and the steam from behind the bar to make [what I assumed were] espresso martinis wafted in the distance. Our waitress with the blonde ponytail was unfriendly at best and rude at worst, up to interpretation. The food was good as always, but I struggled to enjoy myself as I swallowed the acid creeping up my throat knowing a simple remedy had been denied because of what I perceive as lack of care. I hope this review helps demonstrate that a SIMPLE request accommodated can make all the difference. Treat others the way you would like to be treated, don’t dismiss a small request away as insignificant because it doesn’t matter to you. Small gestures may make all the difference in...

Sals used to be one of our favorite restaurants in Charlottesville. Sadly, it is now one of the worst restaurants and we will not be going back. Everything from the service to the dinner ware to the food was simply abysmal. We ordered the Caprese salad as an appetizer.When it arrived on a paper plate, it was missing the basil, one of the main ingredients for the dish. When I told the waitress about the missing basil, she didn’t apologize at all but said she’d be right back, not taking our plate to the kitchen with her. Instead, she came back with some basil leaves in a paper cup and said “here”! When our spaghetti Bolognese arrived in a covered paper bowl on a paper plate, my husband and I just looked at each other and said what in the world is this mess? The spaghetti was completely soaked through to the bottom of the paper plate, and there was hardly any sauce on there to begin with, and so we simply covered it back up and took it home. The paper plates were simply shocking. We have been to about 20 restaurants since Covid, and even when we go to the backwoods country diners, we always get china dinner ware. The silverware at Sal’s was actually worse than the stuff we used to have in school. It was so flimsy you could bend it with your hands. So from soup to nuts, the entire dining experience was simply horrible. Reinstate the china and good quality silverware, make the dishes as they should be made, and overall step up the quality of your food game, and we...