Trattoria Stella — Restaurant in Denver

We like this place a lot. For my last visit, I had the Mustard Brie Fusilli and it was great. The atmosphere is quaint and personable, and it is a fantastic date place. They have some good wine, and if you go the correct way on the food selection, you won't be let down. I REALLY wish they would bring back brunch, as it used to be spectacular. I give it a 4 only because their website/marketing seems to be a little disjointed and off as far as getting info out online, but overall I would definitely recommend this place without a doubt. Fun places are around for pre or post, whether you are looking for a dive, shops, or whatever. 32nd is a cute street, and this place is a gem.

MY MOST RECENT VISIT: McKenna, we hadn't been there in a while, and you made our visit incredible. You made room for us at a four top, and we truly had forgotten how good your place is. My wife and I shared a bottle of wine, and the pic is below of what we had. Great pricing, great wine. We split a Caesar salad and it was fantastic. Sorry, I slacked on the pic of the salad as I was really hungry. We split the mustard brie fusilli (insert Seinfeld joke right now). Their bread is great, and the communal atmosphere full of talking makes you believe you are truly in a great Italian place. No extra charge for the split. Mustard Brie pasta was as dope as I remembered it last time. Yes, I just said the dish was dope. So, either I am too old, or still cool as the other side of the pillow. You be the judge. Wife still is on the fence. This was one of our favorite places for brunch back in the day and I hope they bring it back. I don't know how to describe it except for this. Every single dish is good in its own way and unique in its own way. You can order something "crazy" and it will taste good, and the boring bolognese is just as good. Cool street too, and wander down past Lowell for cool stores and company. McKenna is a lawyer, so she is smart, but know this. I promised you a stellar review and here is it. Us ordinary folks are paying attention, and details are so important. Thanks for the...

I am simply writing this review to give everyone who is considering having dinner here for a special occasion with a party of 5+ to seriously re-consider. I am not bashing this restaurant and this is a mixed review. I want this restaurant to improve and hire more staff that’s why I am complaining- because I care.

This was my first time at this restaurant and it came highly recommended. We spent over $500 this night.

I had a horrible experience at Trattoria Stella in the highlands on a Friday night and I was accompanied by my 6 friends to celebrate a birthday with dinner.

We did call ahead seating at 6:45PM and arrived at 7P. They would not seat us unless the entire party had arrived. Everyone arrived at 7:30PM and we did not get seated until 9:06PM.

During this 2 hour wait we sat in the back bar with minimal service. THEY ARE EXTREMELY UNDER-STAFFED. We had to track down a bartender to order a bottle of wine. We had to go behind the bar ourselves to refill our glasses. They did have wine glasses so we drank out of glass mugs. We had to track down the bartender again to ask for a menu and then again to order an appetizer which was delivered by a young lady with a dirty look on her face as she dropped the plate at our section of the bar.

After asking about our table and wait several times in the course of 2 hours we saw a table come available and asked to be seated there. We were told by the manager that, "They didn't have room to add more staff in this tight place" -after offering some polite and constructive feedback while being seated.

More staff would have made all the difference in our experience because the service we did receive from the hostess and server was great. My food was under-cooked and I had to send it back. You can image how hungry we all were after waiting over 2 hours because our meals arrived at 9:45PM.

They gave our birthday girl a free dessert which was nice, but overall I have to say I will not be returning to pay $80(after tip) for a 2 hour wait, 3 glasses of wine, undercooked food and the upset stomach I ended up with the...

Tl,Dr; overpriced, low quality food.

Any review saying there is flavor here must be lying. The pre-meal bread was stale...Bread. At an Italian restaurant. A bad omen for the dish to come.This is a plea to improve the quality and flavor of food served at this establishment.

5/5 people in our group were upset at what we paid for what we received. Based on reviews, you would never know the chefs at this establishment have a war on flavor. I haven't ever left a review so passionately bashing the quality of food served at a restaurant.

Our waitress enthusiasticly recommended us the Creamy Sausage Rigate and the Truffle Asparagus as house favorites. For simple meals that cost $16-18, one would expect for them to be flavorful and filling.

The truffle asparagus scores a generous 2/10 on a food scale: a small pile of undersalted, devoid of flavor, buttered noodles paired with undercooked asparagus. Unacceptable quality for $17 meal.

The creamy Sausage rigate, while aesthetically pleasing, was so contrastingly unflavorful. 2.1 out of 10. Every person at the table put it on the same level as the truffle asparagus pasta in terms of lack of flavor. Sausage seemed like ground beef, never seen a spice in it's life, paired with the most bland tomato cream sauce this planet has ever seen.

While I only tried my companions' shrimp pesto gnochi and Garden squash pasta, they were equally devoid of value and flavor. I think salt simply does not exist in that kitchen. The food seemed rushed out based on how quickly it was delivered, and not cooked fresh to order would explain how bad the meals were.

This is quality that I would expect had I paid 8 dollars for food at some quick establishment, not some solidly reviewed, high priced Italian place. I would never recommend to anyone. Please put some flavor in your food. We had to salt our food to even stomach it, unfortunately we should've complained in person but here is our vented delayed...