Mangia Mangia — Restaurant in Key West

Ok folks this review is for the two visits I had to this restaurant in the past couple of weeks. First visit I had the seafood scampi which was ok. Three jumbo shrimp tasted fresh but the lobster was lacking in the dish as well as the crab. I was actively searching for the lobster and found a few very small pieces along with pieces of shell. The crab was even smaller, just flakes scattered about. It had way too much clam broth that made it a soup instead of a scampi. The caprese was ok, that would be difficult to get wrong. Bread was tasty. So, I left the restaurant feeling maybe I might come back and give it a second try. I live in Marathon so I have to drive over a hundred miles round trip. My daughter really enjoys her meals here when she visits so we tried again after seeing a movie at the local theater. Walked in the door on a Tuesday evening around 6:30pm and of course we had to wait ( 20 minutes we were told) if we wanted to eat inside which I did because it was 91 degrees out. So we waited. Fifteen minutes later a group of five people enter and also wanted to eat inside and were seated immediately. Huh? So, I guess a group of five gets the table because they will generate a higher tab. Great for business, terrible for customer service. Needless to say we left. Now I am a local and take no pleasure in giving a low rating but I can honestly say I have no desire to drive from Marathon to eat at this establishment again. It is apparent they would rather let a mother and daughter wait and see if a better money maker walks...

If you’re into food/dining then I’d recommend going here with low expectations. I already was managing my expectations based on reading reviews but was still left with much to be desired.

Pros -

-Cudos to whoever is making the fresh pasta, it has a lovely texture and flavor. All three pastas I tried were cooked perfectly too. The fusilli was my favorite shape

-ambiance on the patio is nice with the string lights and the breeze

I enjoyed that the service was hands off and we could relax for a long time without being forced a check

tiramisu was authentic and delicious

Cons

service was… a bit odd. I felt like we were inconveniencing the server when we didn’t immediately know what we wanted to order

wine glasses we were brought were filthy. I felt uncomfortable saying something because the server already seemed annoyed

-was told that the “meat sauce” was a bolognese, even when I asked for clarification. Sadly it was not bolognese, it was bland marinara with ground meat. The chicken portion in the chicken parm was quite small despite general portion sizes being large. I kind of expected a server at a restaurant with these prices to know what bolognese is

no fresh parm was offered, instead there was a pizza parlor parm shaker on the table. Again, at this price point we should be getting fresh parm. I wouldn’t be bothered if these were 10 or 15$ dishes but for 85$pp(with two drinks and tip), I expect more

bread service and caprese were...

I came here with a group of 5 adults and 2 children- the waitress came over and said for the infant in the high chair to not make a mess and threw a towel down on the floor for us which originally rubbed our group the wrong way. After receiving the appetizers the other child at the table became ill so we requested to go boxes for our food and for the bill. Once we received the bill and paid it was brought back with a 20% gratuity added which was no mentioned or discussed at any point by any staff member to our group. Obviously unknowing there was already a self proclaimed 20% on wrote a tip in- before leaving we discovered the gratuity was already added so we crossed out the wrote in tip and spoke with the waitress and the host with our dissatisfaction and verbalized with the waitress that we scribbled out and DID NOT authorize any other tip be added. We asked to speak to management to which we were told “management had to suddenly leave and they have no idea when they would ever be back.” Two days have passed and we check our bank statements and the waitress helped her self to another 30$ on top of the 20% she added her self. We called again today for help with the robbery that occurred by our waitress to which again were told there was nothing they could do and rushed us off the phone- the man who answered said it was supposed to be “his day off.” We have contacted a lawyer and are still waiting for someone to return the...