Josephine's Sicilian Kitchen — Restaurant in Kitty Hawk

This restaurant came highly recommended by a couple of people we met on a dolphin watch on Roanoke Island. We are so happy that we took their recommendation because this has to be the best Italian food we have had in a very long time. The smell of freshly baked Italian bread was so intoxicating that we couldn't wait to get our own. Dipping the freshly baked bread, which was soft on the interior and a crispy exterior, in the pesto and olive oil dip, made the bread taste even better. That was some of the best pesto I have ever tasted. Fresh basil, cheese, pine nuts and oil made this pesto shine. We started our meal with Nonna's Potato Croquettes. Creamy and flavorful mashed potatoes coated in a crispy bread crumb exterior. My wife ordered the Josephine's Combo, and was blown away by the size of everything on the dish. Two fresh and tender meatballs stuffed with mozzarella cheese, fresh homemade Italian Sausage, pasta coated in an amazingly flavorful Bolognese sauce that was rich with meat and balanced by the incredibly flavorful and delicately sweet tomatoes. My son's Spinach Lasagna was some of the best lasagna I have tasted. The filling was both creamy and light, and deliciously addictive. Then came the Shrimp Scampi I ordered. The shrimp were tender and full of flavor, and the pasta was perfectly Al dente. The scampi sauce was the perfect balance of garlic and lemon. Again so good that I had to clear my plate. For dessert we enjoyed two Cannolis, one with a plain shell and another with a chocolate dipped shell, and a Tiramisu. The cannolis filling was sweet, creamy and a good balance of chocolate chips, and the best part was that the cannoli shells were completely filled with cream. The cannoli shell was light, crunchy and a hint of sweet cinnamon. What I enjoyed about the chocolate dipped cannoli shell was that it was a thin coating of chocolate which didn't overpower the sweet cinnamon flavor. The Tiramisu was outstanding. Creamy filling, sweet ladyfingers coated in espresso coffee, and topped with cocoa powder. Yum. I am part Italian, and I have to say this is the best Italian restaurant meal my family and I have had in a very long time. Kudos to you...

My wife and I are from here but we don't live here anymore. She came down to visit recently and got to try this place for the first time. All I have heard about for the last 2 months is how I have to go here and have the amazing food.

They open at 5:00 and we had to be there at 4:30 to get a seat or else you have to wait till 6:30 or 7:00 to get seated.

There were two very large parties there waiting for tables so we wisely took up seats at the bar and decide to eat there.

It would probably have been a much better experience for me if it wasn't for the customer service issue. There were six of us, ordering drinks and entrees, anxiously awaiting to try this amazing lasagna I keep hearing about.

The bartender/waiter brought out this nice giant sized portion of lasagna and asked if we needed anything. I just asked for some more bread, will be expecting him to say okay and be back with it in a few minutes.

Instead, he quickly cut me off and said we only give one basket of bread. And then he just turned and walked away....

Six people with entrees and drinks is probably a $250 bill here. I have no problem paying for it. I wasn't necessarily asking for free bread. You could have simply said extra bread is a $4 charge and I'd have been fine with it.

Instead I basically sat there pissed the rest of the meal. Maybe it was great lasagna. I'm not going to know because I was too busy seething that I literally was told I couldn't have have bread. I can have more liquor, more drinks, and presumably more entrees if id asked. Just give me bread when I ask for it.

Personally, I enjoy the combination of a good Italian bread sopping up my red sauce. It's about the cheapest thing on the menu....just give it to a customer when they ask.

As is, the attitude ruined my meal. I would have liked to enjoy it after looking forward to it for the last two months.

I'm not likely to be...

Mediocre food, borderline terrible service, dank musty smelling cramped interior. Prices are very low, but I'd call them appropriate for the fare. My wife and I waited 75 minutes for a table on a Tuesday after arriving for date night around 5:30 (couldn't even squeeze in at the bar). Looking at all the reviews, it sounds like we had this one coming. My mother in law said we didn't have to worry about timing if we were sitting at the bar, she was wrong. Once at the bar, we couldn't get the bartender to even look at us for probably ten minutes, no water, nothing. From there on, service was painfully slow throughout. Other parties who came in after us were served their entrees before we got ours, which also kind of miffed me. The menu is the most primitive Italian American selection, hardly Sicilian. Almost everything has cream or cheese, which isn't traditional for an island off the boot of Italy. Honestly having chicken parm on the menu is basically a sham, but I guess they need to put something familiar there. At the end of it all, the winning factor is the price. Wine was priced at 150% of retail which is super low for restaurants. Food was also appropriately low priced. I'm stunned to see the dozens, if not hundreds of people praising the quality of the food. I come from Philadelphia where Italian American food is on every corner, so maybe I'm picky? I don't know, I just don't...