Gianmarco's Restaurant — Restaurant in Homewood

Disappointing. This restaurant came highly recommended to me by many people. Unfortunately this did not live up to the expectation and was extremely mediocre at best.

Let's start with the service: We had a reservation at 8:30 PM. Arrived early, yet were not seated until around 9:00 PM. Gentleman who was in charge of checking people in was rather abrupt and not exactly professional. I can look past this given the labor shortage, and staff are likely overworked.

Waitress was clearly over worked, she was running around trying to do the best she could but was probably serving way too many tables at once. I give her a 5/5 because she really was doing the best she could.

We were served some bread which was served cold. Would have been much better if it was a little warmed up but I looked past that.

Ordered the fiocchi as an appetizer and I will say this was quite good. Sauce was a little watery but the flavor of the fiocchi themselves were on point.

Now onto the entrees:

I ordered the chicken parm as this is usually a pretty good benchmark for any Italian restaurant. It looked great on the plate, but the quality of the dish is a completely different story. Tomato sauce was sour, had almost no other flavor. Chicken itself had extremely soggy breading, and was very tough and rubbery. Cheese on top was standard mozzarella. The whole dish was just very bland and lacking in any flavor which was quite surprising, almost like there was no salt added at all. I will say though, the rigatoni alfredo on the side was good.

My partner ordered the osso buco with risotto as this was one of the specials they had that evening. For those who do not know what this is, osso buco is veal shank that is slow cooked and is supposed to be very tender. Well, as luck would have it, the osso bucco was also rubbery, tough, and not cooked properly at all. In fact, I stabbed it with a fork and picked the whole thing up in one go. Risotto was watery, probably under cooked. Much like the chicken parm, very little flavor, and no salt.

I have never, ever sent food back to a kitchen. But the food was just not acceptable, especially given the price range, that I could not keep quiet. We ate a couple bites, sent it back, and asked for the check. When I am paying $26.00 for a chicken parm, I expect that it will be exceptional. Clearly this was not the case.

To the restaurant's credit, and to my surprise, they did comp us the entire bill which was very generous and unexpected. Needless to say, I still left a very generous tip for the waitress as she truly did her best.

After reading some recent reviews, it appears my experience is not the only one like this. I suspect they may have hired another chef who works certain days, and that does not know how to prepare food to the standard this restaurant should be at.

If you are the owner or manager, and are reading this review, I left my contact information. Please feel free to call me and discuss if you want any...

Last night was my 68th birthday. I booked Gianmarco's about two months ago. Gianmarco's WAS our go to place for a special meal with family and friends. I am from New York and the Veal Chop Parmesan has always been my go to dish that reminds me of my past. This meal was very disappointing on many levels.

Service: At first, I was very hope the service would be good. Our reservations were at 06:30 PM. We were seated right away. I wanted a relaxing meal with my wife and adult children. It took 15 minutes to get my wife a glass of wine. That was my first clue. Still, I was hopeful. The waiter had a lovely accent which reminded me of being in Europe. He must have been new. He had a hard time remembering the special or it seemed that way. He was pleasant but seemed overwhelmed, over worked and a bit stressed.

Ambiance: Gianmarco's is always loud. If you want a quiet place, this is not the place to go. I knew that prior to getting there. Always packed and always popular especially on a Saturday night.

Food: This was both a disappointment and shock. Lets start with the appetizers. We got the special which was Moral Mushrooms. My wife has fond memories of fining Moral Mushroom with her dad growing up. They are very rare, only this time of year, and very delicate. They are supposed to lightly fried. These Moral Mushrooms were heavily battered, tasteless and the only flavor was the Aloi. We also ordered Mussels. These were awful, must have been old and were VERY fishy. My entire family said, they were bad which is very unusual. I shared this with the server, who said nothing, took the place with a frown on his face. I had the Veal Chop Parmesan and shared it with my son. Unlike times before, it was way to salty, and I only ate half of my half. My wife had veal picada. On her first bit, she had grizzle, and her entire plate was uneaten at the end of the meal. The sauce on it was off as well. My daughter had the sea bass; he liked it but was not wowed in anyway.

When the server came to the table for desert, we asked for to-go boxes for my left-over Veal Chop and my daughters Sea Bass. My wife entire plate was unneatened and she said she did not need a to-go box. The server clearly saw nothing was eaten on her main course and said NOTHING. Not a word. We skipped desert mainly due our disappointing meal. The check came and it was wrong. Seems the server only charged me for my neighbor drink instead of my bill. It took a while to get his attention, and he saw the mistake and apologized.

We all agreed, this iconic restaurant was not the place it once was. Sad, it was the place I would want to go went I wanted a taste of the past. Eat well, Drink Well and...

I made the reservation a few weeks in advance,(since they tend to book up quickly) and looked forward to our birthday meal at Gianmarco’s.

Server was nice, the bread was very good and there were plenty of specials of the day. I ordered the mussels in white wine appetizer as that’s one of my favorite dishes anywhere.

There were plenty of mussels, but they were just shy of raw. I asked for them to be cooked for another two or three minutes, and the served took them back to the kitchen. It was okay until the server put them back on the table and told me that the sauce was likely (now) thicker than under “normal” cooking. A server should NEVER insinuate that the guest doesn’t know how mussels are properly served.

I eat mussels everywhere I go, from the Southern Hemisphere, to Europe, New England, and other parts of the world. Mussels should not have the consistency of raw oysters. Even after the mussels were cooked a bit more, they were still mostly (almost) raw mussels. I did not eat them.

My entree’, which I had ordered before the mussels arrived, was the Linguini and Clams - which is one of my favorite dishes anywhere. That is, except at Gianmarco's. I was literally stunned that some of the linguini was crunchy, and the rest was way shy of al dente. I think al dente was what they were going for but they missed the mark. As if the pasta wasn’t bad enough, the sauce was a grayish, watery liquid that was awful. The clams were also rubbery.

What I didn’t tell the restaurant, is that I’m a travel writer, and am well acquainted with how food should taste. I will usually eat whatever I’m served, even if it isn’t great. It is rare that I cannot eat my dinner.

What I can say that is a plus for the restaurant, is that our server did pronounce Bruschetta correctly, and my husband did like his lamb dish.

Sometimes restaurants seem to believe the hype about themselves, and when they drop the ball on dishes, it must be the diner’s lack of sophistication for taste of the food.

I’ve eaten at Gianmarco's a couple of times in the past, and had a decent experience ; so It may be, that for the first time ever, I was really unlucky and ordered the two dishes on the menu that were awful.

I suppose everyone is entitled to an “off” night, but this was a milestone birthday celebration, and we left Gianmarco’s and went to...