Little Venice Restaurant — Restaurant in City of Binghamton

Italian food that falls short where it matters the most.

Little Venice! I have eaten here a handful of times over the last couple years and my experiences are typically very consistent in being underwhelming. There are, however, a lot of positives that should be discussed first.

This visit was on a weekday for lunch, between noon and 3 pm. The establishment was not busy.

I arrived with my party for lunch and we were immediately greeted and sat. Service throughout this visit was outstanding. Our drink and food orders were taken promptly, we did not wait long periods of time for our food, and staff were prompt at refilling drinks and removing empty plates. A+ service!

For appetizers we ordered each variant of the egg rolls. Yes, this is still Little Venice, an Italian restaurant, we are talking about here. For these options there are chicken egg rolls with alfredo dipping sauce, sausage rolls, and a pepperoni, ham and cheese egg roll. For being a not very traditional appetizer, these were fantastic and I highly enjoyed each variant, and would go as far as recommending these egg rolls if you do find yourself at Little Venice.

I also thought very highly of the dessert, which on this visit were the three mini cannolis. Cannolis are one of my favorite desserts to order out and these ones did not disappoint.

So with all of these positive attributes, why did I rate Little Venice so low? Short answer: consistently dissapponting main courses.

I don't believe I have ever been to little Venice and been overly happy with my main course. On this visit I ordered fettuccine alfredo with chicken, specifically with the breaded chicken cutlet at the recommendation of the staff. When my order arrived at the table I found the fettuccine very difficult to separate from itself as it was very sticky and overall was only adequate at temperature and flavor. The Alfredo sauce itself and the chicken we're both fine but the fettuccine situation really brought the whole dish down. Unfortunately, pasta should really not be a difficult thing to get right at an Italian restaurant, especially in an area so saturated with very good Italian establishments.

Coupled with all my other really sub-par experiences in the past, like overcooked or burnt chicken, soggy sandwich rolls, etc, I have a hard time recommending Little Venice over many of the other local Italian options unless you really need to stay within downtown Binghamton for...

It really saddens me to write this because I’ve been going to Little V for over 40 years, and my parents have been going there since the 60’s. Last time we were there I noticed the meat logs changed. You can’t fool someone that’s been eating those things for 40 years. One bite and I knew. More dense, very dry, and not the usual flavor. My usual fettuccine Alfredo was overcooked and stuck together in a giant mass. I thought it was just an off night. My husbands chicken parm was dry as a bone. He even asked “what did they do to the meat logs?” For the first time in my life, we left there dis-appointed and that was just a real bummer.

Got a to go order tonight and I ordered 2 orders of ravs, fettuccine Alfredo, and meat logs..just hoping my last trip was an off night. Well got home and they gave me two orders of rigatoni instead of ravs. Not in a million years would I ever order rigatoni from Little V (they are known for their ravs) and since it was a 20 minute drive, I wasn’t about to go back. They are going to make it right with a gift card, which I appreciate.

With that said, my father and I took a bite of a meatlog and the first words out of my dad’s mouth were “they changed these..” See, again, you can’t fool someone that’s eaten so many of those things for decades. We normally can’t get enough of the meat logs but I didn’t even eat a whole one, and that’s saying something. My fettuccini was once again overcooked.

This place is an institution and to see these negative changes and have these bad experiences is really a shame. I implore the owners to do what they can to change the meat logs back to the way they were, the food quality back to the way it once was, and to keep the original Little V legacy alive before...

If I could give this zero stars I would. My boyfriend and I have been to many restaurants together and this has to be the worst overall experience.

Upon entering the establishment we are blown in the face by a very loud machine, from there we were ignored for a solid five minutes before someone barked at us to travel to the back of the restaurant and find a host.

Once we get to dining room we are forced to wait for three hosts to stop arguing with each other before we are told again to find a host and sit down. We awkwardly stood at the cash register until somebody sat us. The waitress dropped the menus onto the floor next to the adjacent table and then looked at us while we picked them up.

We're served cold Italian bread and butter packets. You would think that an Italian restaurant would provide olive oil. After ordering the margarita pizza and the meat-log sandwich (with cheese and french fries) we began to think that maybe the food would make up for the lousy service. The atmosphere was certainly nice.

Our food took a while to come out and once it was served there was barely any cheese on the pizza and it was missing basil. They forgot to provide plates and once they did they brought us dirty ones. Not once did the waitress check up on us. The meat-log sandwich did not have cheese on it and the serving of french fries was meager at best. When we asked them to add cheese to the sandwich they slapped on a thin slice of mozzarella and stole away the bread from half the sandwich. Their sauce is way too sweet and everything is overpriced.

We were very excited to be going to this restaurant, but we will never come back again. I love to eat and I have never been this pissed off with food in...