Mosca's Restaurant — Restaurant in Louisiana

This place is an institution, and frozen in time. It's ironic that while Moscas menu pricing has evolved over time to match those of any fancy restaurant in New Orleans, it's menu hasnt. This place probably wouldn't survive if it didn't have decades of history to fall back upon. Everything from the menu to the wine list to the fact that it's cash only caters to the concept that you're in their house and you'll take what you'll get. Their menu is sparse and simplistic and a la carte. I can appreciate the beauty in its simplicity if it was well executed but it just does not hold up. This place could not compete against any modern restaurant. Imo It survives because of tradition.

Every single thing we had on the menu had problems. From the bread they brought us which was cold and stale, to the crab salad which was just a bowl of iceberg lettuce with a few pickles 3 pieces of celery a sliver of bell pepper and a small handful of crab meat. the dressing was mostly white vinegar or at least it tasted like that. And this is where I think a restaurant of this stature commits unforgivable offenses. If you're going to make simple home cooked dishes at least use quality ingredients. The olive oil that serves as the base their dishes is a very poor quality and lacking freshness. it is so easy to make these menu items come out better so why not? It boggles the mind. Why not use fresh ingredients in a $16 salad?

In fairness, I have just spent the last 2 weeks in Italy and I've grown accustomed to real Italian food using quality ingredients. I think the restaurant owners may need to take a trip back over there to familiarize themselves with proper Italian cooking.

This to me was the theme of the meal. I think the recipes are good but the ingredients that they use in every dish was poor and cheap tasting.

For example their signature dish, shrimp mosca is basically their take on BBQ shrimp using an olive oil base with herbs. So why not use fresh herbs? not only are they using dried rosemary but it's really old dried herbs that really have absolutely no fragrance to them. I don't understand what the point is? And they give me the shrimp unpeeled which is fine but they also throw in whole cloves of garlic that are not peeled. What is up with that? can you imagine using onions in a dish and throwing a whole unpeeled onion into it? It seems like almost a complete disregard for basic culinary rules and consideration for the customer.

Virtually every dish on the menu had some kind of weird omission or error in this respect. Overwhelmingly every dish that used olive oil seems to use a very low grade of olive oil which I would expect in a non Italian place but not something that's supposed to be traditional.

Basically nothing tasted fresh. their Italian sausage didn't taste like Italian sausage and was overcooked and extremely dry. how difficult is it to put some fresh fennel in there? Their meatballs tasted more like bread than meat. They're red gravy was way too sweet. Spaghetti was well-cooked and the roasted potatoes were good. Those were the only two highlights in an otherwise disappointing meal.

I like the historic nature of this place and its funky old style location. I don't mind going out of my way and I like the crowd and the wait staff. But it's really disappointing how little effort is put into bringing the food up to modern standards. How difficult would it be to use fresh herbs instead of petrified stuff? How difficult is it to make an olive oil vinaigrette taste decent? Make meatballs taste like actual meatballs and not some kind of meatloaf. and for god's sake, if you're going to add garlic into something peel it so that it actually imparts some flavor into what...

I am almost afraid to say anything about this restaurant and experience due to the fact that the owners get aggressive and seem unprofessional in their response to bad reviews. But, we were not happy with our experience. It seemed we a party of 20 people were mostly ignored and left to our own accord. Not one time did they come by and ask for refills on our sodas, teas, or waters. We only recieved bread once when we sat down at the beginning of our dinner experience. Family style ordering was a bit stressful for a large party but, we understand the concept. It just was not something we all enjoyed in the process. The wait time was soooooo long on the salads. Then it took a long time to recieve the entrées. And Yes We were aware of the long wait time for food on the menu but it was still ridiculous. The smaller tables obviously were getting faster and more service from what we observed. We still had no refills on drinks and still no sign of our waitress or waiter. We had to go up to the bar to get a tea refill(and was charged for the refills). I was told from the waitress I spoke to that it would be better to get the alcohol drinks from the bar separately from the food, which we did. I was also told it was team services with the wait staff but, saw the only two servers at our table when they were bringing food out and still no refills on drinks or bread at that point. Three different people asked for the bread and no one brought any out. I myself bussed our entire table and put all the dishes on the little cart they had placed by the bar. We had to make room for the cake. The experience was not what we had hoped for and expected after the things we had heard about this long running restaurant. Now, I know the owners will come in and say "why didn't we take the time to come to them when we were there". Well my response would be "why didn't a manager or a owner walk around and check on the people in the restaurant (especially, a 20 person party) and see how things are? We were having a birthday dinner and did not feel the desire to complain during a birthday dinner where we were expecting to have a great time. Just didn't feel the need to bring the party down because Mosca's dropped the ball on our service. That is why we as customers have the opportunity to write reviews to help restaurants improve on their mistakes and help potential customers make an objective decision on trying out said restaurant. The food was Ok in my opinion. The meatballs tasted like bread, over indulged in breadcrumbs I assume. Now before I get a response on this review let me say this, if you have taken the time out to read my review. A manager or owner could have taken the time to check on us and we could have made an attempt to correct the situation. But, after spending almost $900 (included gratuity) and having the experience we had, you probably would not have wanted to talk me in person. There are now 20 plus people you have lost on a first time experience and we all live here too so we aren't from out of town. So sad for you.....do better or you will contiue to get these types of reviews. Yours Disappointed, A...

So I am basically summing up my descriptively long review because Google won't accept the full length version. Lol!

Basically my husband and I were asked to attend a besties birthday dinner at Mosca's. We did. Our group of 20 who had never been were pretty much treated as if we did not exist. Of course for the basics we were attended to. Orders, bringing the food out, and the bringing out of the birthday cake. Aside from that not one time was our table visited by a manager, owner, or service staff to check on drink refills, if any other food was needed, food taste, or the clearing of dirty dishes or empty bread plates and glasses. The host of the dinner had to get up and explain the ordering process since the server had no clue how to do that. The food was not brought out at one time leaving big gaps in our dinner. Drinks were never refilled for those with teas, sodas, and water. We literally had to get up and walk to the bar to get refills. Some people were charged for refills. When the host has to get up and bus most of the table, except my husband's and my dishes because I did that, I find it majorly rude. We sat with empty glasses and dirty plates for a solid 20 minutes after we were done eating. Luckily there was a rolling cart behind us so we cleared the table of dirty items and placed them there. They were even stacked nicely by our host. What did we receive in exchange... Looks from a couple of the servers, and a bill over $900 which included a auto grat that was not deserved. When I asked for my tea refill at the bar, that I had to get up out of my seat about 1 hour and 15 minutes later to walk to, the server behind the bar acted as if it was beneath her to refill my tea and was very put off by even having to do it with a slight eye roll. One gentleman at our table even picked up a couple of glasses , asked what those guest were drinking, walked to the bar for refills, and was charged for refills on two ice teas.

All and all the experience was awful. The food was OK. For the reviews it gets I expected better but that is me. The service was sad, somewhat rude, very disrespectful, and mostly non existent.

Would I tell anybody to go to Mosca's. At your own risk. You might get service... Beware.

Will my husband and I , or anybody sitting at the table last night go back... NEVER! This experience was singlehandedly the worst dining experience I have ever had in my 20 years of living in the New Orleans area. I have served, bartender, and been a GM of 2 restaurants. They need to up their game big time.

Note: With a large party always assign a server to them. Regardless of how you run things. This way they are attended to and reviews like this won't happen. Tips will be larger too. People always tip more for good service.

Let me be done here.

Signed, One voice for 20 people who will never walk through your restaurant...