Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too! — Restaurant in Dublin

My wife and I have been loyal customers of this restaurant for many years. Our usual order is a large Stromboli pizza. When they make this pizza, the ingredients are plentiful and delicious. We also love the crust, which is usually light and fluffy but with a crispy outer texture on the bottom.

A couple of weeks ago we went for dinner and made our usual order. But, when it came we noticed the dough for the pizza was not as good as it usually was. It had a soggy, chewy texture and appeared to be over-cooked on the bottom. We chalked this up to an aberration and went on our way.

Today, we returned for lunch and placed our usual order. When the pizza came, it was clear this was a substandard pizza. Instead of the full thick crust, it was flat and unappealing. Almost like a thin crust pizza. We tried to eat it, but it had a texture like 3-day-old bread. It was very chewy and dense with no hint of the crispy exterior we were used to. The bottom of the pizza was dark and looked over cooked. This was simply unacceptable, particularly for a $35 pizza. We complained to the manager and she gave us $2 off our order.

My wife is a chef and she told me what appeared to have happened was the dough had been under-proved (proofed). Under-proving dough means that it’s not given enough chance to rise to its full potential, so the end result is likely to be a flat dense loaf with a poor crumb structure. Under-proved bread has a very tight crumb structure which clumps together when squeezed, whereas bread which is proved well has a good bounce and will spring back when squeezed.

As I said earlier, we have been coming here for years. In fact, we have brought all of our out-of-town relatives and friends here raving about how good the pizza is. But this issue with the pizza dough is very concerning. Having it occur once is no big deal. But, now it looks like this might be a trend. We will give them one more chance in the next couple of weeks. But, if it happens again, we are...

It all started really good, but went down pretty quick. The say us down in the mid of family reunions and it was pretty loud, but oh well, no big deal really, my husband and I were there to have a nice Italian dinner so the screams and cries of children didn't stop us from having a good night. The server approached us pretty fast, and we started ordering our food, two Italian sodas (even though she didn't know what flavors they had to offer.. strawberry is always good) and some fried raviolis, I was ready to order my food, my husband took a minute. We ordered. Filet mignon pasta for me and chicken parmesan with fettuccine alfredo for him. They bring the fried raviolis, we eat them pretty fast, they were pretty good. Minutes past, other people get seated, other people get served. People get bread, but they didn't brought us any. We finish both our drinks. Half an hour later another server comes to clean up the plate, he comes back 10 minutes later and asks, are you guys done? (Mind you it's been like 40+ mins.) We tell him no, we haven't had our food yet. In the meantime my husband and I are trying to keep good spirits. It's our date night, we want to like this place. They finally bring our food and... I'm sorry, I can do way better at home. I wouldn't pay $20 to sit at a loud restaurant and wait for 45 minutes for that.. the filet mignon was more like steak thin, way overdone, the creamy sauce was flavorless and overall my pasta was cold... my husband wasn't even what he asked for, they put a grilled chicken breast with marinara sauce over his fettuccini and threw alfredo sauce on top. We ate what we could and left. We took our left overs, but we threw them away the next day... totally flavorless. Not...

Excellent Experience with Group Dinner I've dined at Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too in small groups previously and have always enjoyed the experience. For this event, we had a group of 26 reserved, which is slightly below the minimum number to reserve a private room. We dined on a Thursday and ended up having the space for ourselves anyway, which was great. We chose the "family style" dinner, and the food was fantastic. It didn't taste like it was "mass-produced." The family style dinner came with 3 appetizers, 2 entrees, 2 pastas, 2 sides (we chose mashed potatoes & vegetables), and dessert + coffee. There was more than enough food for everyone and we even brought leftovers home. Rodrigo helped us coordinate our event, and it seemed like he knew who we were each time we called. He made the coordination very easy. One of the best parts about Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi's is that they don't charge you for guests that don't show up. We were only charged for who actually dined, so we didn't feel like we were wasting money. The servers brought the food quickly and it seemed like something new was coming out every time we were ready. If we needed anything, the response was prompt. I would highly recommend using Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too for your individual or...