Antico Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Huntersville

Well, it’s unfortunate, but I have to give a low review. My birthday dinner… we walked into Antico at about 7pm. There was no one up front to greet you, write your name down, or tell you how long of a wait to be seated. No big deal… until we waited about 10 minutes up there before anyone came to greet us and seat us. Next, we got our drinks (water) and I had to ask for a straw but he only gave us one and didn’t offer one to anyone else. I’m still ok at this point. The server answered questions about the menu well and asked if we needed another minute, which we replied yes. One minute turned into thirty (30) minutes and there were water glasses empty. Server finally comes after the thirty mins go by and takes our orders. Still no water. So I set the empty glass at the edge of the table. About ten minutes after I do that, we got a refill. Fast forward to 8:10pm when we are finally getting our food. Looked good and was hot. I got fettuccine with shrimp. Came with 4 shrimp. Two were somewhat on top, the others were mixed within at the bottom of the pasta. Fine. I start eating and I bit into a shrimp with shell on it. No problem, right. I take out the shell and realize it’s not just a little piece, but rather a large piece. We ask the server if that was normal and they responded with “yes, if you take the tails off, the tails will shrivel up”. Ok, whatever the excuse. However, no I have to dig through my pasta to find all the shrimp which supposedly have tails on them. I find two tails and pull them off, but there were 3 shrimp. One shrimp magically had no shell. So his excuse was false. Overall, the service was horrendous. Similar to some of the other low reviews. I hate giving bad reviews, but this was bad. I get better service at fast food places. If you can deal with extremely long waits and no refills or check-ins, feel free to try it. Otherwise, save yourself some time and go somewhere else. ...

Against my better judgement, my wife and I called off or plans for a nice restaurant downtown because we were exhausted. Settled on something local. One of the worst Italian dining experiences you can have, especially for the money.

We asked for sweet tea, tasted horrible, not fresh. We asked our waitress what it was and she said it was jug tea from Harris Teeter. We asked to see their drink menu and all they offered was wine. Again, date night. Wish I had known. I was so looking forward to a drink. They brought out a basket of bread. No saucer with herbs and olive oil to dip our bread in. Just plastic rings of butter. Then I ordered the caprese. The tomatoes were those big thick beefsteak tomatoes you see on big burgers at the county fair. Not the smaller, more flavorful tomatoes typically used in a caprese. The mozzarella was hard and dry, indicating it was old or had set out a little too long. Definitely not fresh. The presentation was ugly. I ordered the special, spare ribs. Tasted like pot roast. No flavor. So weird. The wife ordered creamy pesto with Angel hair. That was pretty good.

My gipe: My bill was $150 for just my wife and I. No alcohol. This was a passable meal for something we'd make at home. But when I go out, I'm expecting much more than what Antico offered. If this is their level of quality there's nothing wrong with that. But they must lower their prices in kind. When I see $30, $50 for a dish on the menu, I'm expecting quality.

Just go to Carrabba's. It's like 5 minutes away. You'll have a better experience at...

The interior is very pretty and clean, and the service was friendly and accommodating. The food was disappointing, I was expecting better from such a nice atmosphere. I ordered Rigatoni con Vegetables which comes with a garlic white wine sauce, and I added shrimp. The pasta and vegetables were cooked correctly, but the whole thing lacked flavor and the shrimp were tiny! I mean they were like the little bitty salad shrimp but cooked up in the saucepan with the veggies, definitely not what I was expecting. I asked for more sauce, which they accommodated and cooked some fresh, very much appreciated. It had chunks of garlic and added more of the flavor I was looking for. It wasn’t spectacular, but was much less bland. On the upside, the marinara on my daughter’s spaghetti was homemade and delicious. My husband had chicken parmigiana which he said was fine, basic chicken parm. My other daughter had chicken fingers from the kids menu. They were overcooked and the server instantly got her a new plate, very nice. The chicken was cooked much better, but just tasted funny and was paper thin, not much chicken, mostly breading. I know it’s just a kids meal, but nobody ate it, even the corrected meal. I would say Antico is worth a try if you want basic pasta with homemade marinara. The staff is friendly and...