Melini Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Ironton

My wife was craving chicken parmesan and we were hours from anywhere familiar. We read reviews on Melini and it seemed more like a pizza joint but we decided to take a chance. When you walk the first thing you notice is the beautiful decorative ceiling and woodwork around the windows which feels welcoming and warm. You wait to be seated and luckily they weren't too busy so we were seated right away by the friendly host. The menu is a complete Italian restaurant menu and had a lot to choose from. Our waitress arrived promptly and was training another so she informed us which was nice. She took our drink order and brought back bread that was fresh and included marinara. We both ordered sweet tea and it was amazing and they have the good nugget style ice. My wife ordered her chicken parmesan and I asked our waitress what she would suggest since we had never been there. She made a couple of suggestions and I chose the pollo Rosa. While waiting for our food to come out we overheard another customer order chicken parmesan and the waitress offered other options to her for noodles which my wife prefers angel hair and didn't realize it was an option. Our food arrived promptly and was a decent portion and seemed presented well. The pollo Rosa was very good. The sauce was kind of mild but was tasty and thick. The chicken in it was excellent and was grilled just right. The chicken parmesan was another story all together. While it does have the thick spaghetti noodles that wasn't the deal breaker because that was a simple issue that we could have avoided by paying more attention to the menu the worst part was the chicken that was used in it. The fillet was clearly a frozen breaded piece of emulsified chicken and it had a low quality off putting flavor and a hotdog like consistency. I couldn't stomach more than one bite of it myself. After some time the waitress came back to check on us and asked how everything was so I explained that my dish was top notch but my wife's was horrible and didn't eat any of it. The waitress offered to bring her something else but we had been there for a while and I was nearly done with my meal. The waitress stated that she would let her manager know about the chicken and did not offer anything other than an apology. We skipped desert and paid the full bill. I would eat there again but would have to be very cautious about what I get and question the menu. I travel the country and eat at a lot of places and my reviews are as fair to the buofferedsiness as possible. I do not change reviews because the business has reached out to me or me anything as compensation because the end game is to honestly inform the other customers of what to expect. Thank you for taking the time to read my review and...

Our experience here had some highs and lows... And the best/worst all involved the service. This was our first time here and it was recommended to us by several locals (always a good thing!) despite the fact that it's a regional chain. Draft beer selection was pretty limited (and it's a Pepsi joint - which earns demerits from me). We saw the mozz cheese sticks covered with tomato sauce & baked with shredded mozzarella cheese over it which sounded wonderful! The server asked us if we wanted the mozz sticks fried or baked. We looked at each other confused and said, "well... Fried, right?" Our server shrugged. Well, that was the wrong answer. We received regular old mozz sticks... No sauce over it, no extra shredded mozzarella cheese. Total bummer. 😕 I had seafood Alfredo (daily special) and my companion had stuffed manicotti. She couldn't decide between a red or Alfredo sauce. Our server suggested a pink sauce - good idea! Our dishes arrived. Mine was fine with the Alfredo on the better side of good (they do make it there) but there wasn't much pink sauce on the manicotti so we asked for more. We had to ask the server two more times and then when it finally arrived it was absolutely heavenly. However, when the bill arrived not only were we up-charged $2.99 for the pink sauce without being told that we were also charged $2.99 for the extra pink sauce! None of that was cool. They also make their salad dressings; I had blue cheese and she had Caesar dressing. Decor was Italian and they were playing Italian pop music, which was kind of fun.

Bottom line: If you go and have questions, make sure you get full answers. On the fence about going back if we're in...

Mannn, where to start. Whenever I go to an Italian restaurant, I always order a chicken parm, because that's like a default classic Italian dish and a personal favorite, with that in mind: It was absolutely ATROCIOUS, the chicken breast was like soggy corn flakes wrapped around a completely unseasoned chicken breast, that's what it tasted like, texture was horrible. My girlfriend ordered the Tour Of Italy, which is Alfredo pasta, lasagna and a chicken parm breast. Mannnn, the lasagna may have been the worst thing I have ever eaten and I'm very serious, the beef in the lasagna was "SOS" ground beef, it was just greasy, plain ground beef layered in a basic marinara and a super thin layer of ricotta, wildly underwhelming, took one bite and spit it into a napkin. The only positive and it's a partial positive was the Alfredo sauce, to be honest the sauce was pretty good, especially the texture, it was super creamy however, no seasoning to it, not even a parsley garnish on top, I mean that's like the absolute minimum thing to do. Overall, the food was just bad all around, no seasoning, no flavor, no authenticity whatsoever. I can not get over how terrible the chicken parm and lasagna were, legitimately the worst meal I've ever had.

The reviews that I am seeing from others, praising the food here, I think you all need to get out more, this can't be the expectation of what you're used to and if it is, I am truly...