Panevino Ristorante — Restaurant in Livingston

Went there on a Saturday night and will not be returning. Service was very slow. It was clear they did not have enough staff. The bread they brought out was cold and the butter was directly from the fridge so you could not spread it on the bread. When I asked the server whether we can get warmer bread or softer butter, she brought out another basket of bread that was cold so it was useless. She said all of their butter is refrigerated so softer butter is not an option. I’ve never had this happen at any Italian restaurant where you could not spread butter on bread. So we gave up on the bread and just left it alone without eating it.

We also had to get up on our own and go ask for napkins and cutlery because we were tired of waiting for someone to bring that out.

We were seated right in front of the bathroom. Let’s not even talk about the level of noise in the restaurant and people constantly going in and out of the bathroom, which made the dining experience horrible.

The biggest surprise for an Italian restaurant was how limited the menu was. I have never seen such a small menu for an Italian restaurant.

We ordered the eggplant appetizer which was OK. Nothing special or exceptional. I ordered penne, and it was not worth $20. I could’ve made it at home with penne pasta and Rao’s marinara sauce (which I have made at home in the past and it was way better than what I had at this restaurant). The pizza my friend ordered was nothing special either. Based on our meal experience we skipped on dessert and didn’t even bother trying. In the server didn’t even bother asking us. Probably because she was too busy and didn’t want another thing to deal with. Never even asked us for refills on our simple diet Cokes. We could not wait to get out of here. The bill was a hefty $65 for very basic things. I don’t recommend this...

This review comes with abundant photos, of beautiful but entirely unremarkable food. The shining star of our entire meal was the order of Calamari, which was crisp, well salted, and abundant. The Tropical Salad was unworthy of human consumption, the arranged rather than tossed salad, and abnormally large pieces of lettuce, made consuming it on such a small plate all but impossible. The chicken parm was bland beyond our wildest dreams, and used a chicken breath with the bone in wing attached, I would hope someone simply ordered the wrong item, as no one likes the surprise of what looks like golden crispy goodness and ends up being a wing bone. The eggplant parm had flavor and texture notes of uncooked flour, and weirdly distributed layers of mozzarella and herbs... the most offensive thing about it wasn't the side of ... wait... if doesn't come with a side of anything... it was the low moisture part skim mozzarella that they charred into a solid surface ontop. I considered keeping it to plug any leaking tires on the way home. To further enhance the mediocrity, despite being empty, our drinks took 20 minutes to leave the bar. Admittedly the orange whiskey tea is the best thing on the menu... so... go for the drinks and prepare to be otherwise let down... drive for real Italian food, Rezza in Roseland does a nice job... as does the ever venerated E and V in Paterson...ALSO... avoid the expresso... it was the most bitter expresso i have ever consumed...i was waiting for a plume of cyanide gas to come off in the steam... though that may have had more flavor than the rest...

-Have been here a couple of times before and it’s been above average, but my most recent trip was bad enough so that I likely won’t go back -Burrata cheese was not the consistency it was supposed to be. It’s supposed to be creamy, room temperature, gooey consistency. Here, it was just cold mozzarella put on top of tomatoes -Speaking of tomatoes, one of the tomatoes on that dish still had the sticker on the skin. I’m not a professional cook and I don’t even do that -I mentioned this to the waiter, and eventually the hostess came out and assured me we wouldnt be charged. Of course when the bill came out, they tried to charge us for it -Service was incredibly slow. It took us 16 minutes to get our waters and we would probably still be waiting if I hadn’t walked up to the bar and asked for them -Waiter never checked up on us once...only bringing the wine at the beginning and the check. Incredibly bad service, not only slow but ignorant too -Eggplant parmesan was pretty mushy, almost like babaganoush. We make much better eggplant parmesan at home -Panevino is quite overpriced and overrated. We’ve had a couple of okay meals there, but this was bad enough to keep us away. There are better Italian restaurants in the area like Romeo y Giulietta, Anthony Marra’s, and Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza. Even Olive Garden would have been better than what we experienced last night because...