Spazio Vino & Cucina — Restaurant in Holly Springs

This place is NOT getting my money! Customer service completely subpar!

Details: Just today, my wife and I booked this place to celebrate a birthday dinner. We wanted to try something out that we hadn't tasted before, and we thought we were in for a good evening.

They open at 5:00 PM, and one family was waiting ahead of us. We arrive at 4:55 PM, and we're waiting outside. We were obviously dressed nicer than your average casual diner, but that's neither here or there.

The family in front of us is seated, and they are having a wonderful conversation with the hostess. The hostess didn't even ask them if they had a reservation. Mind you, the entire restaurant is empty at this point! We are the only other party there, so it makes sense: do they really need to ask if they have reservations if there is not a single solitary soul other than us and the previous family? I would say not really, but hey, I'm not here to police that action.

Hostess then turns to us, in a completely empty restaurant, and asks "Do you have a reservation?" Now for the record, I see other review saying people just walk in, and as I previously mentioned, this restaurant has, at this point in time, NO ONE ELSE IN IT! My wife calmly answers Yes, and you would have thought the guest list was in the hundreds because she actually looked HARD at her paper to find my wife's name. The reservation was at 5:30 PM, did you really have a million reservations between 5:00 PM when you opened and 5:30PM? Red flag number one but hey, not a real deal breaker, other than the complete LACK of any kind of cheeriness/customer service/conversation, you name it. You would have thought us walking in brought her whole day down.

We are seated at our table, and the waitress comes out to take the first family's order and bring them water. Ok, no issue, she'll give them their water, take their order, and bring us some water while we peruse the menu? NOPE. Walked right past us without giving us water, no acknowledgement, no "thanks for coming in today", no "sorry I have to get more water" for you, just didn't even care that we were sitting down. Ok, ok, we're not really getting perturbed at this point, but we are noting things.

While they are cheerily taking care of the first family again on the second visit to their table, someone WORDLESSLY without ANY speaking whatsoever, fills our water glasses and walks away. This is now hilariously odd. We're sitting there asking ourselves, did we do anything to make this person angry? We literally just arrived, there's no rush, there's no massive amount of tables or people to be serviced. Ok, so that's already major red flag.

Now we check the menu out, and look, if this was a relatively cheaper place, you could probably look over these kind of customer service issues. For the prices on that menu, for the poor customer service we were getting, for what was advertised vs. what was being delivered, no thank you. The prices on this menu don't match at all to the customer service we endured. They literally didn't say any more words to us other than "Do you have a reservation?"

On this day, 09/27/2025, from a local who lives here in Holly Springs, NC, I urge you do not waste your money here! We went to another restaurant nearby and you know what? Two people commented immediately, "You all are really dressed nice! Are you celebrating anything?" Why yes we were, we spent hundreds of dollars at that restaurant, tipped very well, and we were much happier.

If you've gotten this far, and in case you're wondering, yes we ARE; you know what exactly what...

When I saw another Italian restaurant pop up in Holly Springs, I was in no rush to try it out. Most (all?) of the Italian spots in the area are of the "Americanized" cuisine variety - so it's easy to find and enjoy that, if that's what you're looking for.

I missed out. This place has been open about 6 months, and I only just made my first visit. Ladies and gentlemen: if you've been to Rome, and you miss it, and you want to smell it, taste it, and hear it again - without traveling 5000 miles, this is it. Here's my experience:

The two of us were greeted at the door by Vincenzo, a man of depth, stature, and rich with backstory - the gondolier of our transition from a parking lot in Holly Springs directly into the heart of Roma. "Buon appetito!" he probably said, after we sat down at the finely adorned white-clothed table.

The ambience is nice, but not pretentious. Not rustic, and yet - I did feel a connection to the old world. The music was perfect as well. It was not the cliché "italian restaurant" playlist on Spotify. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what it was - but I would bet it's exactly what you'd actually hear in a traditional Roman Hostaria. Pleasant, relaxing, easy.

I couldn't think more highly about the staff. Everyone was lovely, but our waiter, Pietro, was our primary representative for the entire experience. Pietro, like the chef, is from Italy. What a gift it was, to hear Pietro describe the items on the menu, answer our questions, and offer insight to how Chef Paulo works, and why - on this particular day - the Spezzatino de Manzo (Roman style beef stew) was made with NY Strip Steak instead of the customary chuck roast, because his butcher had a particularly well marbled selection that Chef Paulo saw as an opportunity to take advantage of. And take advantage he did. And it was marvelous.

Pietro led us through Pinsa Funghi as our appetizer, the Spezzatino de Manzo, the Risotto with black truffles on top, and finally two small desserts: an affogato, and a creme and berries dessert that was not on the menu, but again - something the Chef had prepared based on opportunity.

A special note about the Pinsa: it is not pizza. The dough is not made of the same stuff pizza dough is made of. It's made of a specific blend of various flours, and the result is a light, airy, crispy here, chewy there, just-right crust that - once you've had it... look, just go look at my yelp review from 2014 for a place in Rome called Pinsere. I've been chasing that damn flavor ever since then, and only ever had it that good in Rome. UNTIL NOW, MY FRIENDS. Chef Paulo has done the seemingly impossible: real actual genuine delicious Pinsa outside of Rome.

I could sit here and write a manifesto about each dish, but this review is already long enough. I've been to Rome a few times, and I've always wished I could get some part of the experience I loved having there back at home. For me, SPAZIO is the first place to achieve that, and I still can't believe it's RIGHT HERE, in Holly Springs.

In my opinion, the best restaurants are owned and run by the chefs that infuse them with a lifetime of passion, practice, and love for - not just the food - but everything that happens around the food. SPAZIO is Chef Paulo's love story, authored with a romantic heart, cast with charming characters, it's a story that invites you to Rome for an evening, and surrounds you with the same food, wine, warmth and joy that you wish for when actually...

We also didn't have a great experience. From the moment we entered the establishment, we weren't loving it. The place is much smaller than we anticipated from the outside. When you enter, there's no one to greet you. There are 3 high top tables in that first area with unused bakery display cases. It makes the entryway feel unfinished. There were people at the high top tables but no one greeted us until we tentatively made our way back to the main dining room to meet another couple for dinner. When we were almost there, a woman at one of the high top tables asked if we were meeting someone. We said we were and she instructed us to go on back and said her name was Bonnie. Weird. We found the couple we were meeting immediately since the dining room is so small. As soon as we sat down, we took out our cell phones to read the menu. It was so dark in there. If you do happen to go, you better place your entire order as soon as you see the waiter because you don't know when you will see him again. It appeared he was serving the entire room. We were served no bread and there are no salads on the menu. We also were not told they don't have a full bar, until we tried to order something. The limited cocktail menu is very vermouth heavy. We had to ask about specials. We ordered the meatball appetizer. We weren't told the price but how expensive can they be? I recently got the filet mignon meatballs at The Wild Turkey Lounge at The Angus Barn, which were incredible. 12 good size meatballs for $15. That was NOT what we had at Spazio. We were served 5 small meatballs for $20! They were angus beef meatballs but there was nothing special about them. On to entrees. I ordered ravioli, which I never even saw on the menus when I visited Italy. It came al dente. I didn't enjoy it and it looked to be a child's portion. Maybe 8 raviolis for $27. Both men at our table ordered the lasagna, for $26, which they likened to Chef Boyardee. We had 2 glasses of wine and an espresso martini. This all totaled $135 because the waiter split the entire bill instead of charging us what we ate. We were 10 minutes late and the couple we met had a charcuterie board before our arrival. They don't even know how to split the bill correctly! And we were still hungry when we left. We literally drove to Sonic and spent $25 on food so we would be full. And the chairs were uncomfortable. We were there for over 2 hours waiting on poor quality food and being overcharged for it. Would...