Ermilio's Italian Home Cooking — Restaurant in Eureka Springs

My wife and I have been visiting Ermilio's since at least 2013. Throughout the years, we've introduced friends and family that were traveling with us to Ermilio's, and everyone has always loved it. Our latest visit we were in a wedding in Eureka Springs on 3-26-2022. The party of 11 took our advice and we had dinner after the wedding. We waited roughly 1 hour to get seated, which we felt was very reasonable.

Due to our party size we had one table of 6 and one table of 5 at neighboring tables. My wife and I sat at the 5 top. We ordered the stuffed mushrooms and mussels to share. As always, the appetizers and bread with roasted garlic were great. Usually, the garlic is roasted more and easier to smash but we made ot work and it was still very enjoyable. We ordered our main entrées and shortly our house salads arrived. All their dressings are made in house and are very good, especially the blue cheese. Unfortunately, the waiter neglected to submit our order to the kitchen. It wasn't until after the other party of 6 got their food that we assumed something may be wrong. Once two other tables that sat well after us got their entrées we knew for something was a miss.

Finally the waiter came over and stated one of the dishes we ordered was not in stock to serve, gnocchi. Had the waiter submitted the order, that dish would've been available. I know this since he told the table behind us that they just ran out and we had ordered that dish probably 20 or so minutes earlier. Needless to say, we were disappointed. I do give credit to the waiter for remaining calm and owning up and verbally saying he made a mistake; he is only human.

A little later, we finally got our food. The food was delicious as always. I personally got the fish special, which consisted of a panko crusted walleye fish accompanied by some amazing green beans. I'd like to mention that the filet of fish was large. The waiter offered us free dessert before our meal was over but we declined since we normally don't order dessert and honestly had no additional room for it.

When the bill came, he comped our appetizers. Luckily, we've been visiting for so long with so many great experiences and that we will still be back without hesitation. Also, while upstairs waiting for a table to be ready, the bartender recommended a red Stella Rosa wine. It...

Brutally honest review here. I really wanted to give it 5 stars but I just can't for a few reasons. Ermilios is hit or miss. This is the 4th time we have dined here over the last 4 years. I highly recommend dining in. 2 years ago we got food to go and it takes away from the deliciousness. Food was absolutely delicious this time. The bread with garlic is to die for. 5 stars for the food 's flavor. 1 star on the regular side salad. It's a plate of mixed lettuce with a cherry tomato thrown in. I watched waitresses carrying back plates full of it, like people weren't eating it. Maybe make the regular side salad more appealing so people eat it. Next time we will upgrade to the Ceasar salad like we usually do. As for portion sizes, my husband was less than impressed. For chicken marsala, $25 a plate I agree, the pasta should cover the plate. His portion seemed very small compared to mine. He basically got a half plate of food. Overall yes we will probably eat here again when we come back in the fall. I just hope we get a different waitress, she was stressed and clunky, and slammed everything down on our table that she delivered. It was off putting. She seemed a little frantic and wasn't managing her service very well in order. Also we believe she possibly served 2 beers to a minor. I cringed when I heard him and the whole table tell her he didn't have his ID and she decided to serve him anyway. Risky business as I thought he looked about 19, but my age guage could be way off. He was at the loud table of 4 next to us ordering cocktails and appetizers, ordered their food after us and were finished eating and ordering dessert as we finally got our food. We were glad to get out of there as soon as we ate our food. Opted not to order our usual bottle of Riesling Hougue. Delicious sweet white wine by the way, I encourage you to try a glass of it, which is $10 per glass. Bottles are $32 which is a bit pricey considering they are only $12 at the liquor store. This review isn't to discourage you from eating and drinking here. Just beware, it's not as magical as some of the other reviews have...

We ate here based off of the reviews. We arrived shortly after 4pm and we were told about a 45 minute to 1 hour wait. That is reasonable for a place that has such high reviews. They do offer a sitting area upstairs with a cash bar. We headed upstairs and after about 1.5 hours my husband went back downstairs to see how much longer, luckily we were the next on the list and were seated within 5 minutes. Service was quick and our waitress did a great job. I have to give a full disclosure in my review and let you know that I had set the expectation high as I live within 40 minutes of St. Louis and the infamous “Hill” neighborhood. Lots of Italian restaurants very well know for their amazing Italian food.

So here it goes. They have bread service which Italian restaurants are known for. Their bread was good and was served with roasted garlic cloves. The garlic cloves were cool and I wished that they would have been served warm. We started the evening with toasted bruschetta. It was good but not the best I’ve had. Following the bruschetta we opted for the house salad which was mixed greens with their house Italian. The house Italian was rather tangy, more than I prefer and I wish that the salad had some cheese. I ordered a dish that I haven’t seen in St. Louis, penne pasta with a creamy blue cheese sauce. It was very good. My husband had spaghetti with meatballs. He said the spaghetti was good but he prefers a red sauce on the Hill. The spaghetti could have used more sauce. Our son ordered the filet mignon with a tarragon sauce. It was cooked to medium and was cooked just right. The sauce was definitely over powering and not his taste but if tarragon is your thing I’m sure it was amazing. It was served with green beans, they were okay and a side of pasta with a red sauce. We finished off the dinner with tiramisu and an espresso. The tiramisu was amazing and I barely got a bite in as my son devoured most of it.

My recommendation, give it a try! We are just extremely spoiled by living so close to a top notch Italian neighborhood filled with some of the best Italian...