Osteria Stella — Restaurant in Knoxville

Updated Review:

Food - The charcuterie board and focaccia bread we ordered as appetizers gave us a very good first impression. Crushing the garlic and spreading it on the focaccia with the confit garlic oil doubled the savory flavor. The bread on the charcuterie board was also very delicious. The lasagna we ordered as the main dish was as delightful as it was on our first visit, maintaining the same consistent flavor that made it enjoyable. The carbonara, however, was a little disappointing. Instead of the harmonious aroma of egg and cheese, the dish had a slightly bitter burnt taste, possibly due to a mishap with the heat during the preparation of the mantecare (mixing of the pasta).

The dessert, as always, was excellent. The tiramisu wasn’t overly sweet, and the ladyfingers were perfectly soaked in coffee, creating a well-balanced flavor. The pie was sweet and tangy, pairing wonderfully with both the espresso martini we ordered and the wine.

Service - The server seemed well-trained and displayed excellent basic manners, which we greatly appreciated. They made recommendations without hesitation, promptly found answers to any questions they didn’t know, and checked in on us at just the right intervals—not too frequently or too rarely.

Overall - My wife and I visited on November 23. The ambiance was just as satisfying as before, making it a great place for a date. The server was very friendly, the food was quite satisfactory, and the wine list was appropriately sized to cater to a variety of tastes. This visit erased the unpleasant memory from our first visit completely. Thank you!

-Old Review- The server was kind, friendly and so helpful. Maybe because of the weather, water was dripping between my girlfriend's seat. We reported to the server while we finishing our dinner. He felt so bad that we had that experience but the manager never show up to us about that issue.

Food was ok

Castelvetrano olive As a fine dining restaurant, I wish they present little tongs to the guest who orders olives. Some people don't like picking olive with their hand and it's a little hard to use a fork to get the olive has a pit.

Polpo e patate- I wish they cook a little longer to serve octopus. It was a little too hard to cut with a bread knife(they only bring us bread knives). And the flavor from the dish was super bland. I wish if they could grill the octopus or something before serve.

Spaghetti vongole e bottergar The first bite, sandy clam. It can happen I didn't like they use bucatini to make vongole. Because it has a hole in the noodles. I couldn't even taste any clam flavor from the sauce. Not even a tiny bit. Bottergar too, I couldn't taste any of them and they ground to top of clam a little bit. I wish they put less salt to cook and balance it out with bottergar. (As we all knows, bottergar is salted and cured mullet roe)

Lasagna This dish was very good. The sauce was very well balanced. It was Individual lasagna, not the huge one that serves with pieces. I definitely recommend this dish.

Tiramisu Great flavor very smooth and not super sweet but the ladyfinger cookie they made was a little too hard so it bothers me a little bit.

Crostata This one... I really think it's too small for 8 dollar dessert.... No offense. The flavor was excellent but it's. A little too small.

Overall As a fine dining restaurant, I think they need to work on a little bit more for service and food. Just a little detail thing to match to their...

When Too Much is Just Too Much: A Lesson in Overcomplicated Flavors

After successfully wasting my precious youth, I am now experimenting with novel ways of wasting the rest of my beautiful life. Unfortunately, Osteria Stella was less than beautiful - or at least the food was. As someone intimately familiar with Italian food, I can honestly say that this was... underwhelming and over-flavored.

We started with espresso negronis for an aperitif and they were far too sweet. We then dove into our starter, the Cozze al Peperoncino (mussels). I didn't have a lot to complain about here, except that the sauce, a lovely creamy pepper and white wine concoction, was so rich that we couldn't taste the mussels at all and, where mussels are concerned (myself being from a mussels region), I would prefer tasting at least a modicum of the sea in my shellfish. Plus, the bread was soft, but over-charred.

For the primi, as vegetarians, we wanted to try the gnocchi and risotto. I had high hopes for the dishes, but the kitchen seems to have mistaken "more" for "better." Both plates were exercises in excess—too many flavors, poorly combined, leaving the palate overwhelmed and confused.

Gnocchi alla Bava: The idea of delicate gnocchi in a Fontina cheesy roux with caramelized onions sounds delightful in theory, but in execution, it was a disaster. An unexpected balsamic reduction clashed harshly with the richness of the fontina, turning what could have been a cozy, harmonious dish into a discordant mess. The crispy potato skins felt like an afterthought, adding an unnecessary textural distraction rather than complementing the dish. The result? A confusing plate that drowned out the beauty of its core ingredients.

Risotto alla Zucca: Risotto should celebrate its star ingredients—in this case, squash. Instead, this dish buried its beautiful simplicity under an ill-advised (again) aged balsamic drizzle. While Calabrian oil offered a nice hint of heat, the balsamic completely dominated, clashing with the squash’s gentle sweetness. The delicate balance that makes risotto special was utterly obliterated.

If restraint is an art, this kitchen missed the memo. Sometimes, less really is more, and these dishes would have been far better if they had stayed true to their foundational flavors instead of trying to do too much. It’s a shame the kitchen didn’t share the same sense of finesse as the front-of-house team, whose lovely service and thoughtfully curated, sommelier-forward wine list were the saving graces of the evening. The tiramisu, was also a standout—one of the best I’ve ever had, with perfectly balanced layers of creamy mascarpone and espresso-soaked ladyfingers that ended the otherwise disappointing meal on a high note.

As an aside, the lasagna was delicious (according to...

This restaurant is fantastic. Truly a great gem in downtown Knoxville. Our server, Jade, was quite inhospitable, but other than that, this place is perfect. The breakdown:

The food is stellar. Almost everything is made in house, including all the pastas, and it is obvious that they care about that they are doing. We had appetizers all the way through desserts, and everything was great. Don't skip over the salads. We almost didn't get salads, and they were amazing.

The cocktail list is amazing. I only made it through two cocktails before we switched to wine, and I'm anxious to get back to try some more. You can also pop into Brother Wolf, the bar attached to this, and try all the cocktails as well.

The atmosphere is fantastic. It's dark and brooding, but in a good way. The tables are intimate and a good size. They don't try to pack you in like cattle, but it is definitely a small place. Make reservations as early as possible as they can fill up quickly. The flatware is also something different; like you're in your italian grandmother's house. Very home-y.

The service was just okay. Our waitress, Jade, made us feel like we were a burden even being there. On top of having little knowledge of the restaurant's offerings, she made it a point to let us know 3 times that the table would be turning quickly, and basically told us when we would need to leave. She was snarky in every way, and it definitely put a stain on the whole experience. A little backstory, I have grown up in restaurants. My parents used to own one, and I spent many, many years as a server. I make it a point to be as gracious as possible because I have been in their position. However, you definitely don't give the customer the impression that you don't want them there. Especially, customers who are going to tip you and who are about to spend hundreds of dollars on dinner, which we did. We had multiple cocktails, wines, courses, and desserts, and we wanted to experience everything we could. I will say, every other person that came to our table was fantastic; they knew the food and they were excited about it all. I'm assuming we just got unlucky in that respect.

All-in-all, great restaurant! I will return at some point, and I'll be specific on...