Posto Italian — Restaurant in Longmeadow

What can I say? We have another self-bloated Longmeadow restaurant that is more style than substance. "Old School, New Italian?" Well, I have been there twice. I would love to have a fine, family-inspired dining establishment with old world values. This place isn't it. I'm not certain what the "old school" refers to here; certainly not sitting down to a peaceful, paced, enjoyable, meal served with love to be consumed with those you love. From the moment you get your table, the rush begins. After our wait, we were scooted to our table and introduced to our servers. Of course, we would never see them again, but more on that later. We ordered drinks and perused the somewhat spartan menu. Drinks arrived and then some bread. We asked about the preparation of some of the dishes. All were a la carte. We decided on a first course salad followed by a roasted chicken, a margherita pizza, and a pappardelle. No sooner had we dipped our bread and made a toast (which we really couldn't here with the music blaring at an uncomfortably loud volume-- like being in the second row of a Stones concert), the salad came. A few forkfuls into that course and the uneaten bread was stripped away. Remember Claudia and Derek, our servers? We never saw them again, as a constant parade of (possibly roller-skating) waiters and waitresses kept descending on our table to pick up bread, fill a water glass, or ask if things were okay (since the last check; 30 seconds prior). The food was overall bland but expensive. Nicely prepared yet lacking depth and complexity. The pappardelle was too steeped in cream to appreciate any nutty or complex spices usually enhancing a bolognese. The noodles were cooked to perfection, only to be en-robed by an this bland, overcreamed sauce. The pizza margherite was decent. Small and widely barren at the edges of tomatoes or cheese. The chicken was flavorful enough to elevate it above it's Costco cousins, but again, not by much. The really annoying part of the evening was the never-ending barrage of different servers whose functions served more to annoy and interrupt than to provide service for the meal. It was less a meal and more an assembly line served under a deafeningly loud loud of a contemporary soundtrack from speakers dangling from the ceiling. LOUD! How is rapid-fire cuisine "old school?" I thought the Posto restaurant might be a place to sit and cogitate or spin tales of love or family while dining on delights from the Adriatic sea... no, it's a assembly line to the end: the establishment having no interests in you spending one second more in their Trattoria than need be. We left both feeling pressured to leave. Maybe that's a good thing. We could have suffered much more tinnitus had we stayed longer. We've done it twice and it is not your mother's recipes nor her sentimentality. Posto is a heartless machine, chugging oh so loudly to fling you out the door with as much gusto and as little time as posto-ble. It's not a pleasant, warm, inviting time there. Slow it down, Posto. Tone it down, Posto. Allow your patrons to speak and relate in peace eating good food and...

As a pizza enthusiast, there’s a reason in my mind for this one star. No one clicks to read a three star review and also Posto’s has mistakingly made three wonderful pizzas, and a mistake, even a good one, is worth -2 stars if you don’t learn from it, which they haven’t yet.

The dough is great. The sauce is great. Their oven is hot enough. If you get a simple pizza, it would compete with the best in New England (seemingly by mistake)

That said, if you order anything other than a pepperoni, margarita, anchovies, or marinara pizza, you’ll get a disgraceful pie (given I don’t know how they ended up with such good dough and sauce) that’s soggy, overloaded with toppings (Pizza Hut does it better) and unbalanced in flavor, texture, and mouthfeel. Seriously, everything else is trash. My partner thought they hated this place because I, under some false impression of thoughtfulness and intentionality on Posto’s part, ordered just about every other pizza on their menu. The bacon pizza soaks through the dough with grease, the Clams Casino is dry and the clams taste day old.. …. Everything else on the menu either tries and fails to replicate something known or deliver, unsuccessfully, something new that’s enjoyable and fresh.

When you do order a simple pie, it’s both outstanding and insulting. The taste is great but the care put into the pie is obviously missing. Look at this anchovy pizza. It looks like a two year old threw fish at it and their blindfolded parent tried to cut it, one handed, from across the room with a razor blade taped to a yard stick. It should have 8 equally sized slices with one anchovy a piece. You didn’t need to pass high school geometry to get this right. You just needed to care about pizza.

The toppings are similarly carelessly distributed on the pepperoni. Luckily the excellent dough and sauce save the pizza. You’d never see this carelessness at Frank Pepper’s or DeLanci’s and that’s why these are world class pizza joints that stop serving before closing because they ran out dough. Frankly, this place is a quagmire.

If this place would spring for Buffalo mozzarella, fresh anchovy, pepperoni that wasn’t bought at the Big Y across the street, and employ a real Pizzaiolo, it would a pizza destination that was know beyond a google search for best pizza in a little suburb outside a the wildly depressed city of Springfield Massachusetts.

Restaurants would kill for access to this dough and sauce. Frankly, unless changes are made, it’s...

I'm not one to leave reviews .. but there's no email to contact on the website . When you call, a younger girl said the manager is not around at the moment. ?! Okay.... well . So went here for lunch wanted to sit at the bar or near . Walked in and three hostesses standing around on their cellphone says " hi what can I do for you? " that threw us off ... um seat us? What else are we here for? But kindly said we would like 2 for the bar area. " okay sure, I'll meet you there ." Sat down waited like almost 10 minutes for menus let alone service it was kinda awkward. Not one bartender or that floor service server came over nor made eye contact. They were also on their phones. I ended up googling the website thinking it was covid menus... then she comes over and says "sorry I completely forgot" Not a warm welcoming, hopefully the cooks can do their job or is that also easily forgettable? Well see... Ugh waited no server 10 mins . It wasn't even busy Two 2s at the bar, two 2s at the high tops plus us. Three bar area staff! This unhappy short afro styled man comes over and with his arms crossed and says hey what's up you want water or more than just water. We're like yeah?? um ... and then ordered he walked away with us mid sentence. We were very kind too so so confused. Did the same thing when we tried the order apps another 10mins and pizza. after the salad was dropped off he shouted to us how we liked it shouted to us from away. Definitely won't be coming back the pizza was soggy. Had to flag down a different server who was wandering eyes just to get another drink. We each only had two drinks with in the 2 hours we could of easily had 6 but thats how awful the service was.. Losing money! Lastly the salads had no flavor and a lot of rotton tomatoes were in it. I was really disappointed because being a chef like the Federal standards. ,I'm embarrassed for them to be giving this kind of service. I over heard a table saying the same thing too. I understand that Sunday is a relaxing day, but there's still basic standards to service . Otherwise go work at a brewery. Definitely get better food and service at TGIF and that's a low standard...