Antimo's Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Hopewell

I regret bringing a family member to this restaurant for their 70th birthday. I was excited for a nice Italian kitchen with homemade pastas. The quality of the meal and the experience did not stand up to the bottle of wine that I opened up.

We arrived with a reservation to an entirely empty restaurant at 6:00pm on a Sunday. By 7:00pm, the entire dining room was packed.

We started with soup and two appetizers. Grilled octopus was much chewier than expected. Meatballs were a a bit dry but the marinara had a lovely flavor. The pasta e fagioli was disproportionately filled up with elbow macaroni.

Pasta sauce entrees were a disappointment. There was zero presentation in the way of indicating a pride in the food being served. Frankly, all of the dishes looked like the pasta had been hurriedly slopped into the bowl. We were all surprised.

The bolognese was dry and unremarkable. The homemade pappardelle and fettuccini were good, but a little soggy, leading me to suspect that they were not made-to-order. We sent the scallops and cream sauce back as it was too salty and the scallops did not taste good to my mother. We then opted not to grab dessert.

The head server was very nice and it saddens me to have to write a review like this for a place that I very much wanted to love.

If there is a labor of love behind this place, it’s in the back room, and disconnected from the staff. My mother was not even wished a happy 70th birthday....

Awesome - we love the food in store and during Covid lots of take-away. We had a big family gathering and were going to have Antimo's cater it. Daniella (Antimo's wife) runs the catering - she is awesome to work with - she told us about their portable brick wood oven that can cook pizza on location - it can do 4 or 5 pizzas at a time with total cook time of 90 seconds - We thought it would be fun to try.... it was more than fun - one of the joys is the team that came with the pizza oven were professionals and knew what to expect - when the downpour started you could see why they set things up the way they did - nobody ordering, waiting for their pizza or just watching the excitement got wet - they fussed over the little kids and took care of the very senior old folks.... food quality was over the top - some of the attendees hadn't seen each other in decades, some had never met some of the people in attendance. The pizza oven was so unique that it became an instant ice breaker.... it was a bit of a focal point of the party everyone saying what a brilliant idea it was to have pizzas made to order - and they did gluten free, vegan, meat lovers - all kinds.... We were heroes to have hired Antimos.... they really made us look really smart to the rest of the family - Thank you...

Very disappointed. I came in today to have a sit down lunch. Not only did I find it rude that no one even acknowledged that I was standing there I had to initiate a hello to be noticed. Once I was told I could sit and someone would be with me, the server eventually showed up by throwing a paper menu on my table without even a hello. After waiting and watching her help the other few tables still with no acknowledgement that I was there, I walked out. For the prices on your menu, I expect exceptional service. Atleast a hello or welcome....I've been a customer for 5 years and I will not be back. I've been in the restaurant business for many years and this is not how you treat your customers regardless of what excuses you may have. Your server should not be in the business or working for tips if she can't even put on a friendly smile to greet her patrons. Customer service definitely needs to be improved! Especially for the fine dining menu you produce. SO YOUR REPLY IS YOU WERE SHORT STAFFED. YOUR SERVER HAD 3 TABLES. (2 PEOPLE PER TABLE) I'VE MANAGED MANY MORE TABLES WITH MANY MORE PEOPLE AND STILL HAD A SMILE ON MY FACE. EVERYONE IS USING SHORT STAFFED AS THEIR EXCUSE. IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TO PROVIDE GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM YOUR...