Altruda's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Knoxville

My husband and I heard this place was delicious so we have wanted to go for years. For some reason we were under the impression it was ridiculously expensive. It was on the higher end of Italian food but not crazy ($24 for my entree and $18 for my husband's I believe which included salad and rolls).

Finally, this year for my birthday which landed on a Thursday during phase 2 re-opening of COVID-19, we were able to go. For coronavirus precautions since many think that is a factor - I thought they did well. They took everyone's temperature before letting them enter, sat every other table and I saw them spraying down and sanitizing a table when another table across the room got up and left. They opened the door for us to enter and a server or someone opened the door to leave. The only doorknob I touched was the bathroom and I always wash my hands thoroughly and use a paper towel to open the door anyway. The atmosphere was still cozy and homey since there are multiple rooms to sit in like a house even though we were seated and every other table that didn't have a red X marked on it.

Enough of that - on to the food. I personally don't like dressing so my husband got to eat all the salad but I tried the tomato and if I liked dressing I think I would have liked the salad. It tasted flavorful. I just don't like how greasy and oily dressings also taste so I didn't eat anymore.

I am a huge bread person (in moderation of course) so the fresh warm bread with actual diced garlic on top was a win for me. I ate all but the two my husband ate and I probably could have eaten the whole bowl. They were delicious although my breath was super garlicky afterward.

I ordered shrimp Altruda at the recommendation of the server and it was amazing. The Alfredo sauce here is probably the best Alfredo I have eaten anywhere and that saying something. It is creamy, so tasty and doesn't taste too dense all at the same time (even though we all know Alfredo is full of calories). Is it totally worth the splurge.

I tried my husband's pasta and I liked his fettuccine noodles better than my linguine so I would probably ask for fettuccine noodles for my shrimp Altruda next time.

I ordered a cannoli for dessert. This is super important to me when going to Italian restaurants that claim to be authentic. The cannoli has to be filled and brought out then so the shell is still crunchy, otherwise it is all squishy and gross. This cannoli was crunchy and I ate the whole thing. (If it's not good I just take a bite and I'm done.).

I saved some of my pasta and brought it home and my kids and I had the leftovers today and they loved it. Now they want to go too. We will definitely be returning with our...

Overall, Altruda’s isn’t what one would refer to as an authentic Italian restaurant. The service was good, but that's where the flair for authenticity stops.

The restaurant itself doesn't strike one as authentic. It's more like a storage area for old and used items. The outdated styling and poor aesthetics detract from the dining experience and ambiance of what could be a quaint little eatery.

The food, however, was the biggest detractor. I'm not writing this to eviscerate this establishment, but they absolutely missed the mark for Italian gastronomy.

We ordered two appetizers. The mushrooms and calamari. Both were barely warm but far overcooked. This tells me that they sat for a while before they were served. The breading was a heavy batter that just fell off of both appetizers. The calamari was so heavily breaded that one could barely even find the squid rings inside the breading. These appetizers are prepackaged, frozen and fried. No tentacles....just rings. Definitely subpar.

The bread and salad weren't horrible. The rolls looked like something you would buy frozen from a local grocery (think Sister Shubert). They came in a bowl with some sort of oily substance poured all over them. I could only eat half of one before the overload of fresh garlic got too hot and I split the rest of it open faced and put pepper and parmesan cheese on it to make it more tolerable.

The salad was good and the dressing tasted great. The lettuce was crisp, the mushrooms flavorful, and the cheese paired well with the greens and veggies.

Simply put, the entree would have most people demanding a refund. I ordered the veal scaloppine. The veal was breaded and fried as expected and it looked great. Then I bit into it. The breading was soggy but had a certain elesticity to it. It sort of felt like a balloon. The veal inside was overcooked and had almost no flavor. The noodles were good but cooked slightly past al dente. The sauce should have been a lemon butter sauce. It was more like melted, unsalted butter with a single lemon slice atop the entree.

The sodas were great and the tiramisu was pretty good. Our server was on top of her game, but I could tell that she sensed we were being polite and just didn't enjoy the food.

Overall, this restaurant either needs help to achieve what they're trying to sell or they need to stick with clientele that is satisfied with this type of eatery. We may return one day and if so will go there open-minded and hoping for a...

2 stars only because our server was so sweet and I knew we weren’t the only complaint… I love Italian (I eat so much pasta is ridiculous) and I convinced my fiance to go here because of all the great reviews and atmosphere seemed nice. Well I was wrong. First we ordered the calamari and the fried tortellini, flavorless but bearable. We then ordered chicken parm and FETTUCCINE Alfredo with ham and peas. When it was delivered I took one look at my fettuccine alfredo and it was egg noodles. Ok whatever maybe they ran out of fettuccine, no biggie. One bite and I almost threw up. I tried three more bites and even had my fiance taste it and he agreed. For reference, My fiance will eat literally anything even if it’s terrible and he couldn’t even finish his meal. Our server never came back around to ask how things were (I don’t even blame her with the amount of complaints I heard the servers right behind us talking about) so I couldn’t even let her know try and get something different. When she did come back around I told her what was wrong and I felt terrible for this girl so I just went ahead and asked for the manager. He took my meal off the bill and continued to insist he make me something different even after I continued to say I was no longer hungry and felt sick. Manager had no emotion in his voice but again with how many complaints were flying around I don’t fully blame the guy. For the prices they charge and portions they serve it’s RIDICULOUS. We paid $60 for a half eaten plate of chicken parm, calamari and tortellini (drinks were free). Sadly we will not return…

Edit because I read some of the reviews and their responses and I’d like to be one of the ones to call them out… the bread is in fact served in oil with garlic that is by no means fresh because again no taste . They state they use Parmesan reggiano and that’s why the Alfredo tastes the way that it does…. I can tell you right now there is NO WAY they use Parmesan reggiano because I use this at home multiple times a week and my homemade Alfredo tastes 10x better than whatever this was. Come to find out they don’t even stock fettuccine noodles and its always come with egg noodles. Which egg noodles have a very different taste and texture than fettuccine does. In no way is anything except MAYBE the vegetables are fresh, even then...