Fiamma Italian Grill — Restaurant in Hanover Township

First time back since the reopening. Went for lunch. The parking lot was practically packed, lucky us one of us is disabled (well, not lucky…but you know). We arrived around 12:20 and were seated within about 5 minutes…very good so-far. Only problem is it seems there are more tables and less aisle width…but I’m not completely sure if it’s new. I know it was always tight before the fire, but there is barely 14 inches of space between tables and in between tables and the booths. I don’t know how on earth their floor plan passes fire code…I mean it’s definitely not outside the realm of possibility that they might have a fire - they just had one a year ago! But, I digress.

We were seated at the table closest to the bar and the first booth along the windows. Let me tell you, it was absolutely frigid; every time someone came in the door a jet wind of ice cold air rushed over us. They need to install the forced air heating vents over the doors to create a heat barrier at the doors, like Walmart and other large stores have. The cold didn’t just affect us, it caused our food to cool faster, we believe.

The server greeted us within 4-5 minutes, nothing wrong with that during a busy lunch; he was friendly and his service efficient. He brought our drinks and the plate of garlic rolls…which looked more like ‘nuggets’ than rolls (about 1 inch square in size). I LOVE garlic…but for PETE’S sake - there was 4-5 tablespoons of minced garlic on a handful of tiny rolls! Way too much to be enjoyable. This is not something new…it was the same before the fire. We spent some time scraping some of the garlic off the rolls before eating them. On top of that, the rolls were ROCK HARD and cool to the touch. If you sawed them in half, the insides were somewhat doughy; it is obvious they were either old or cooked too fast at a higher temp than should be.

We ordered the Chicken Parmigiana and Chicken Carbonara entrees. The portions were more than ample. I had the Parm. It was hardly lukewarm, but tasted just ok. The sauce was bland for my taste EDIT JAN 29: IF YOU ARE USING PAOLO’S RECIPE FOR THE RED SAUCE ON PARM THAT IS WHY, HIS WAS LIKE HE POURED PLAIN SAUCE OUT OF A CAN ON THE PLATE. PLEASE RETHINK THE SAUCE RECIPE!! The Carbonara was a bit warmer, but with the area being as cold as it was because of the air blowing in from the front door, I would have expected steam to be smoking off the plates.

One positive to note…they had a woman going around the tables with doggie-bag styrofoam containers for those who needed to box the remainder of their plate to take home. What a GREAT idea! It saves a lot of time trying to flag your server down to ask for containers, when they should be focused on taking orders and delivering drinks and food to their patrons.

Overall, while the entrees were generally tasty, the prices reasonable, and the portions quite large, those pros were greatly overshadowed by the cons of the cold cramped seating, rock hard rolls, extremely excessive garlic on the rolls, and less than properly heated entrees. We so wanted to give them a glowing review, but sadly we cannot.

Note: while waiting for our entrees, a group of 4 or 5 senior ladies with wheeled walkers entered to be seated. A standard walker is about 22-24 inches wide. In order to get to their table, in the.back, everyone sitting at the tables along the 14-inch aisle had to stand up and push their chairs out of the way. That is not being respectful of your patrons to make them stop eating to stand up because you have less than adequately wide aisles. I could see the senior ladies were uncomfortable for having to interrupt the seated patrons’ meals…at no fault of their own.

To the owners, please understand I mean absolutely no disrespect in my review. I hope you take it as constructive criticism from repeat loyal diners.

JAN 29: HIRING PAOLO WHO (IF-TRUE) RAN AND SOLD A CA MIA GIFT CARDS, JUST TO CLOSE LEAVING PATRONS HIGH AND DRY (LIKE HE DID @ PAOLO’S) MIGHT ALIENATE PATRONS, REGARDLESS OF HIS POSITION. FIAMMA WAS GREAT...

My fiancé and I had reservations for this past Saturday to celebrate my birthday. Our reservation was for 8:30pm. We arrived on time but were told that we would have to wait 15-20 minutes before we would be seated. 25 minutes later, we were taken to our seats. Our server arrived at our table to greet us, though she seemed rushed and flustered and proceeded to let us know what a bad night she was having due to a trip and fall accident involving another customer. I felt bad but it definitely set a precedent for our overall experience. We had let the server know it was our first time there and weren’t really familiar with possible favorites or Specials. The server could have cared less about that bit of information and didn’t go into any kind of detail about the menu or what might have been a favorite item, she just seemed like she was in a hurry to get us to order and get out the door even though she had told us repeatedly that we were her last table of the night. Fiancé ordered a beer and I ordered some cocktails. The first one, Tipsy Bunnies, tasted like watered down Grape Kool-aid. The Moscato Lemonade was a little bit better but not by much. It didn’t even seem like there was alcohol in said cocktails. Our water glasses were only refilled once after having to get our server’s attention to ask for more water. I ordered the Fried Burrata as an appetizer and I couldn’t wait to try it but sadly, the moment I cut into it, there was a very long, very dark, very thick hair in my burrata. It took us about 15 minutes after that for us to catch our server’s attention and flag her down to let her know that someone’s DNA was staring at me from my meal. The server didn’t seem all that apologetic but instead, a little irritated that I was sending my food back? She took it over to the bar area; for what reason, I don’t really know; but came back about 5 minutes later to let me know that they would take it back (as if I would give them a choice?!) and asked if I wanted anything else instead. I ordered one of the giant meatballs in place of the Burrata and at this point, she was recommending that she just bring it out to us right with the To Go box b/c she clearly had no intention of having us sit at our table past closing time. My main course was the Angel Hair Bella Italia. Thankfully it was free of hair and it wasn’t a bad flavor but the Angel Hair pasta seemed a little over cooked and mushy. Our side salads were never brought out to us. Her reason being, “our main courses were ready and she didn’t want them to sit and get cold”, so the salads were also brought out in To-Go boxes as was our dessert. We received the check and I was taken aback by the fact that they still charged us for the Burrata that I didn’t eat. Granted, we were not charged for the meatball that replaced the Burrata but in my opinion, we should have at least been comped all of the appetizers! For $130.00, not including tip, the service and the food were both disappointing. I’ve now gotten the desire to eat at Fiamma, out of my system and won’t...

Great Food. Great Service. Great time.

I went here not too long ago solo. I've been a lot more into just sort of finding places to go eat at solo. I went to school at Moravian for my undergraduate degree and heard a lot of hype about Fiamma Italian Grill. Never had the chance to go during my undergraduate years due to a lot of bad timing, especially with COVID and Fiamma undergoing renovations for a large portion of time where COVID restrictions were being lifted.

Took the time to go over here recently. I'm not Italian myself, but my first impression when going in is that Fiamma's really has the atmosphere and vibe of a true classic Italian sit down restaurant.

It was a weekend when I went so unfortunately it was packed. I guess fortunately I went solo so I was able to get some bar seating pretty quickly. All the staff were friendly and working fast to get everyone their drinks and antipastos so people weren't just sitting starving. All of the fellow restaurant patrons were cordial as well. The bar was packed, but people made room when I went to sit down.

The gentlemen working the bar that evening, I believe his name was Nino, was excellent. His service was phenomenal. He was quick on his feet to get everyone settled in with menus and drinks, and I remember he mentioned to one of the other bar patrons that he was flying solo that evening too. He was friendly with everyone and great at checking up on everyone seated at the bar by himself. Not only that, but he provided to me a free calamari since the kitchen had made one in error. Very considerate of the restaurant customers especially on a busy night.

The calamari was excellent. Not a single piece was under or overcooked. The sauce selection was great. I mainly stuck with what looked like a marinara/cocktail sauce over the balsamic and spicy mayo but the other options were both great and savory as well. The antipasto I got was great too. Eggplant stacker was what I ordered. Usually I don't get my hopes up for breaded dishes at a lot of Italian restaurants. They tend to be either overcooked and hard or just undercooked in the middle where the middle ends up being frozen still. The eggplant stacker was perfectly cooked and delicious. The side dishes were great too. I got the caesar salad with the garlic bread which were both fantastic. The vegetables were fresh and crunchy. The bread was nice and savory with olive oil and garlic.

I ultimately ordered the salmon fillet with spinach and a fried risotto ball and paired it with a nice glass of white wine. The salmon was perfectly cooked and still had a nice bit of crisp to the top with the inside still being soft and fleshy. The risotto ball was good too, fried well. The spinach was also cooked to perfection and I'm normally the kind of person who avoids vegetables when I go out to eat.

All in all. 10/10 service, food, and atmosphere. I would definitely recommend going to Fiamma's if you're looking for a good sit-down Italian restaurant in Bethlehem. Parking is a little tough, but I think the food and the service makes...