Tour of Italy — Restaurant in Florida

It pains me to do this, but while the food is a solid 4 stars, their lack of honesty in advertising causes me to give them 3.

If you look at their menu, either in the restaurant or online, you’ll see that they prominently advertise “HOMEMADE PASTAS” and then repeat this by saying “all homemade pastas...”, “all homemade speciality pastas...”, and “all homemade baked pastas...”. Here is the problem: the pasta is NOT homemade. It’s is normal, boxed, dried pasta. The same kind you buy in the supermarket. How do I know this? Well, first from the taste and texture of the pasta. It is clearly not fresh pasta or even dried fresh pasta. We make fresh pasta frequently, so we know. Further, I asked multiple people at the restaurant and they confirmed that the pasta is not made in house.

So how do they justify saying “housemade pasta?” Well, they told me that they say that because all of their pasta dishes are made in house. Really?? That’s the case with virtually every single Italian restaurant. I can’t ever recall a restaurant serving reheated, frozen, spaghetti puttanesca, or spaghetti with meat sauce. Now some might serve previously frozen manicotti or lasagna, but that would be an exception.

We mentioned to their management that the menu should properly be changed to say all pasta dishes made in house, as that is more ethical. But calling it homemade pasta is clearly misleading.

Which is a shame, because the red sauce pasta dishes we ate were pretty good (the other pasta dishes were just OK). And their pizza is quite good, although the crust is sometimes underdone (but they use true, NY style thin sliced pizza sausage, which is delicious). And they serve outstanding garlic knots while you wait for your meal.

So I’m hoping that they realize that the phrase “homemade pasta” should really only be used when the pasta is indeed homemade. Which is truly a treat, but not so...

We arrived shortly after 5 pm as a table of 2. A table of 5 came in behind us and was seated first, although we were sat shortly afterwards. We had to sit for 5-7 minutes before we finally asked a server if she knew who's section we were in. A while later a server finally arrived. We gave her our drink and food order at the same time. As we received our beverages, I noticed the 5 top was being served their meals. We sat for another 30 minutes before I finally called our server over and complained because we still hadn't received our meal. She apologized and explained that it was her fault and that it would be there shortly. By the time we finally received our food, the 5 top had completed their meal, paid and left. Their table was cleaned and another party was looking over the menu when we finally received our plates. The ravioli I ordered was piping hot but undercooked and tough, although the Stromboli my daughter ordered was fine. During this experience I had asked to see the manager, but he/she never came out or visited our table. The server did give us a discount on the meal, but I was not looking for a discount. I would have gladly paid the normal cost of the meal but an acknowledgement and apology from the manager would have been greatly appreciated. I seriously doubt that I will return here as there are several Italian restaurants in town where I have had a much...

It would be nice one time to go in a restaurant especially tour of Italy and have fresh food that you pay for so let me give you an example today was Tuesday I came in and had the lasagna it was definitely not fresh it was more older like two or three days more like Frozen and the sauce was very old it is usually a lot better and who wants to waste money on Old lasagna in Old sauce I know because I'm from New York I used to eat it 24/7 so I know the difference it need alot of improvement needs to come at that kitchen and now for the desert I order a piece of tiramisu it was so old it tasted like it was sitting in the refrigerator for about 4 days that definitely has room for improvement the restaurant as far as I can see because it was kind of dark in there looked like it was clean restrooms were fine service was good an added a 53 dollars we spent the only thing was decent was the salad so what a waste of night out at the tour of Italy on my 70 Birthday and if you look at what I do with Google reviews I do a lot of reviews and I've been helping out a lot of people that want to go out to restaurants and enjoy it like I said this definitely needs Improvement I definitely don't recommend it unless you like wasting money thanks so much...