Massa's Ellisville/Ballwin — Restaurant in Ellisville

My wife and I went to Massa's for Date Night, on a Wednesday. We've been there before and went knowing we'd have a very good experience. We were not let down.

We got there for an early dinner - shortly after 5pm. The restaurant is fairly dark with low lighting, red walls, black leather booths and ornate decorations...it feels very "Italian" to me. We sat at the bar, as is our custom. The bar is quite long, with a black swirled marble top and wooden elbow rest railing. They have a full compliment of high-end liquors, a decent selection of beer, and many wines to choose from. The bartender was quite gracious and did a great job.

My wife had a martini and I had a bottle of beer while we waited for our food. She ordered pasta carbonara and had peas added. I had tortellini in a creamy Cajun sauce. I also had a glass of house Cabernet. The meals were fantastic, the servings large. We took quite a bit to-go after reaching maximum capacity. My wife saved some room for a slice of Gooey Butter Cake (a classic St. Louis dessert), which was of course, incredible.

Long story short: If you have a craving for high-quality Italian food, go to Massa's. Great food, great service. The only downside is that it's a little on the expensive side...but in my opinion, Massa's is worth every penny. You get what you pay for. We'll continue to revisit this fantastic...

Showed up during the Friday night dinner rush. Was greeted promptly, and was told their would be about a 15 minute wait. Host was very courteous and kept us informed every few minutes. Many other restaurants can learn from this; if you keep your patrons informed about what is going on, they won't get upset about waiting. These guys did it right.

Once seated, we looked over the menu and had a hard time making up our minds. Many items that sounded absolutely wonderful, and certainly not time to try them all. My son settled on the Cajon Pasta, my daughter had the Fettuccine Alfredo, and I had the Chicken Parmigiana.

While we waited, they brought fresh bread right from the oven as well as dinner salad. It all disappeared really quick. The wait for the food wasn't bad at all, and they refilled the bread with another fresh loaf.

All the food tasted great, exactly as you'd expect from a quality Italian restaurant. Flavors were all well balanced, nothing was overdone or underdone, it was just all really terrific. The portions were huge, and all of us ended up taking home half of our dinner.

Sadly, we didn't have room for dessert. We'll definitely have to...

In response to Mr.John Francis,

I am the server you have referenced in your 2 reviews and letter that you chose to mail to the owners of the restaurant. I'm sorry you feel that you were overcharged, but I ask you to kindly check your math again, sir. I have been an employee of Massa's for close to 30 years and have never, EVER been accused of such. Your bill that evening was $83.09 and you left $16.91 as a tip (thank you for the 20% BTW) but that would make the total $100.00 sir, not the $97.00 you had written down. You are not only disparaging me by posting things that are not true but also the restaurant. So again, I encourage you to check your addition before posting another false review. If after reading this and looking at the math you still feel wronged, I'll gladly mail...