Taste Of Italy Ristorante — Restaurant in Hellertown

Walking in, a strong fishy smell hit us, so my son didn't order salmon. The menu: typical, Italian-American, and overpriced. Didn't try meatballs because of bad reviews. The antipasti had tightly rolled, cheap capicola and a tasteless prosciutto with green and black olives straight out of a plastic 5 gallon restaurant jug. We also ordered a "fried mozzarella" that turned out to be a nearly burned grilled cheese with mozzarella.

The bread in the basket was dry and a bit stale and there was a large slice of butter swimming in a bitter, low grade olive oil mix for dipping (I suppose). Proteins were mixed in with pasta on the same plate--Italian-American style. (no Primi or Secondi).

As for presentation, the portions were HUGE with so many things thrown on top, creating visual chaos. The finisher in the kitchen surely had a heavy hand with our dishes swimming in olive oil. (Many photos on Google are also evidence of this).

I wanted to try their Bolognese but then read they didn't serve it with fresh egg pasta--only dry (not the custom). There was an extreme overuse of garlic in some dishes, as my son's girlfriend had in her mushroom risotto. Native Italians use garlic only to flavor the oil at the beginning, then remove the cloves.

My wife said she had to "saw" through her overcooked chicken cutlet and her gnocchi were definitely made from frozen and were gluey--not light and pillowy as they should be. Definitely not made fresh).

My Pesto Risotto arrived--far too much! I was surprised to see a spoon on my plate. Risotto is eaten with a fork! Texture was gloppy and heavy and coated in olive oil. In 5 minutes I felt queasy. This was a pesto trying to be a cream sauce. The sauce was was broken, oily and heavy and it looked like they poured olive oil over the risotto, pooling below. Perhaps they added too much butter and cream to finish over heat and the sauce broke.

The risotto was not made with carnaroli or arborio rice. I make it all the time and this seemed like a typical long grain rice--inappropriate for risotto. When making risotto, special Italian risotto rice produces its own starchy "cream". There is never heavy cream added! This was a gloppy mess. I still felt nauseous 2 hours after. My son's pesto pasta had very little actual pesto with olive oil pooling underneath. Instead of a classic dollop of pesto on top, there was ricotta (not mentioned on the menu). He felt the pesto was made using dried basil. I agreed. I picked away at it during our diner chat. I didn't want to complain on Good Friday while we were getting to know my son's girlfriend. The waitress came over once to ask how everything was, and my wife answered "fine" while I bit my tongue. After asking for the check, someone asked if I was finished, reaching for my plate just as I was pointing my phone at my dish--something that many do nowadays. Seeing me take the photo, they walked away and went right up to the owner, as my wife witnessed.

During this evening, the owner stopped at nearly every table except ours... mostly filled with his "regulars". Responding to my local review on Facebook, the owner said he "knew these people would be trouble" as soon as we sat down, and that we just wanted a free meal. He also claimed that I pulled the plate out of the waitresses hand to take the photo, with my "agenda" to give a bad review. Never happened. The waitress (passive aggressively) did come back and asked why I took a picture and why I didn't want a "doggie bag". I then told her how dissatisfied I was and how the sauce was broke and oily. I didn't want to take the rest of the dish home. I paid the full bill and a 20% tip and we left. We only drank water, had no desire to have desserts, and were billed over $150 for the privilege of eating at this phony Italian "ristorante". They didn't comp my meal. The owner/"chef" was insulting and nasty after I left a FB review and photo. He is going to lose biz--forgetting he is in the hospitality business. Note the pooling oil in the photo. This is how much I did not eat. The food is...

A Truly Appalling Dining Experience Marked by Unprofessionalism and Harassment: Our Saturday night dinner was, without a doubt, the worst dining experience we've ever had, primarily due to the owner's incredibly unprofessional and frankly, disturbing behavior. From the moment we sat down, we felt uncomfortable. The manager frequently hovered and openly eavesdropped on our conversations, often standing directly behind me and my guests for extended periods. Instead of creating hospitality he made us feel like our privacy was being invaded.

We were seated in a back room the size of a closet with loud large table of approximately 8 to our left. My back bordering the hallway and service area which was noisy and full of activity all night long. This made for a bad location so of course I expressed that upon being seated.

The food itself was a more significant letdown. We found all our dishes to be remarkably bland and utterly lacking in flavor. In an attempt to salvage my $24 appetizer crab and squid appetizer + tax + tip, I politely expressed my dissatisfaction and jokingly asked for a generous amount of lemons , salt and pepper to season the food myself at the table. The least they could do was put a sauce on it. The lemons arrived promptly by our attentive server, and we continued to joke and interact positively with her throughout the night and tipped her well. She seemed to take no offense by our guest cracking jokes and teasing her, which makes the owner's subsequent actions even more perplexing. But having to flavor my own appetizer and my fish dish was not at all surprising. My snapper also arrived in a shallow lake of tasteless plain tomato broth accompanied by tough, stringy dry branches of inedible brocorabi which I choked on multiple times trying to swallow before I ignored them. Again obviously fresh server recommended it, but no vibrant Italian flavors to be seen, herbs, garlic, lemon, sauce, etc. I didn’t say much more about the food because I already had low expectations and the owner although watching us never approached us to thank us for the feedback. We did the best we could and tried to be good sports about it.

However, the situation took a truly shocking turn. We later learned that the owner went on social media to publicly mock and ridicule us, using judgmental personal insults to describe our "karma" when we had to take an Uber home for safety as we did have some wine in the restaurant and, more horrifyingly, when our friend fell on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant and had to be taken away by ambulance. For an owner to not only engage in such childish and cruel behavior but to also use a medical emergency and a call for safety as fodder for public humiliation is beyond comprehension. This is a travesty of paranoia and a gross misuse of a public platform, especially when he had our contact information from the reservation book and could have addressed any concerns directly. At no time did he offer assistance to the unconscious victim lying on the pavement and she is hospitalized from complications of a brain injury she sustained when her head hit the concrete pavement and we still have not heard from him. Doesn’t he not care a person was injured there?

This entire experience, from the intrusive eavesdropping and notorious bland food to the owner's baseless accusations of rudeness we call feedback and his subsequent public shaming, was a complete travesty. It speaks volumes about the establishment's disregard for customer privacy, professional conduct, and basic human decency. We are utterly appalled and would strongly advise others to avoid this restaurant because if you give a feedback about flavorless food or bad table location…expect to be chastised and judged …..we had multiple visits over the years and only had flavorful food once. Why did we come back? We feel we keep ordering the wrong things so we give them a lot of leeway. Mutually, we all agree we have no intention of going back.

Server gets 5 stars, reason for the 1 star is the owner's treatment...

Wonderful Italian American Restaurant in the Lehigh Valley!

It is nice to drive under 30 minutes versus a couple of hours to get to Little Italy on Mulberry Street in New York.

Please make reservations and budget about 2 hours.

The Lehigh Valley offers a lot of Italian dining options, which is wonderful. I don't view the number of Italian restaurants as oversaturation or a competition. I view this as plenty of options and interpretation.

We get different interpretations of Italian and Italian American cooking in the Lehigh Valley. Northern, Southern Italian to West coast and East Coast Italian and the modern and classic. Each Italian eatery in the Lehigh Valley does their thing, and the balance do it really well.

Taste Of Italy carved out their niche already - fresh, classic Italian American food. Hits the taste buds and core memories if you grew up eating Italian American food.

An extensive menu that begs you to come back and try their dishes.

Our party were marking a special occasion and chose Taste Of Italy. We love Italian food and the buzz around Taste Of Italy could no longer be ignored.

Easy to find location with some parking challenges, but one of us managed to score a spot out front, and others behind the restaurant. Please be patient with the parking. The service and the food are worth it.

We started off with ice cold waters, some iced teas and uncorked our red wines.

Fresh warm bread was brought to the table with cold butter so that the tradition of not smashing your bread could begin. Most of us made it through with bread intact, while others simply went for the dunk in to the olive oil and spices.

Burrata Bruschetta, Smoked Fried Mozzarella and Baked Stuffed Clams started our dining experience. Of course Burrata melts in your mouth atop fresh bread and spices. The Smoked Fried Mozzarella could have been a meal it was so good. Baked Stuffed Clams might be an acquired taste and we loved them. Buttery, clammy goodness (weird to read that statement), with the right amount of garlic, onion, pepper and oregano.

Caesar Salads were on-point. Not over the top, not underwhelming: classic and hit the mark!

Entrees included Chicken Parmesan, Pan-Seared Salmon, Linguini Frutti Di Marie and Lasagna.

Chicken Parm had the cutlet with the nice crispy breading topped with mozzarella, sauce and placed on spaghetti. Tender and delicious. Crispy start and moist and flavorful finish. Pan-Seared Salmon was perfectly spiced and prepared.

The Linguini Frutti Di Marie seemed to have all the seafood from the ocean in it! Salmon, shrimp, mussels (our favorite), clams, scallops, calamari (squid), and crabmeat. Impossibly delicious and impossible to finish.

Barely any room for dessert but we managed. The Mascarpone Cheesecake with a side of spumoni put most of us in a welcomed food coma. Cannoli was on-point.

We waddled out with our to-go bags and a new set of memories.

Eager to try the Veal Frangelico (you read that properly), Chicken Dean Martin, anything with Rigatoni (the best pasta), and their Specials of the day.

See you again...