La Collina — Restaurant in Lower Merion Township

My experience with La Collina was not a good one. I would not recommend this place.

My boyfriend and I decided to go here for Valentine’s Day! when I first arrived I pulled into the parking lot not knowing right away it was “Valet”. When I realized, a man ran at my car and was getting hype with me that it was valet. I explained im trying to turn around. After knowing I’m turning around. He never asked if I was eating there, If we needed the valet service, he honestly to me just made me feel like he assumed I was a young kid and not deserving of that treatment. I’m 25!!

I found parking on the street and we walked in. It’s a little congested. It’s not very spacious and it was packed. Could be due to Valentine’s Day! Our first seats were just really close to another couple and we felt like we were on top of them so we asked to move to a table in the corner sorta.

We had a server (male) who was just rude, not friendly, barely spoke, rushed us to figure out drinks and etc. When we came for the drink order he was rushing and getting kind of spazzy for us to answer. We chose. Another couple about 5 minutes after putting the drink order in came in and sat next to us and 5 minutes after that she had her drink. Which means we sat for 10 minutes with nothing.

When my boyfriend kept saying excuse me, excuse me he walked right by us like he didn’t hear him when it was clear we were being ignored.

We asked another waiter if we could have more bread. I watched him approach a female server and say that table needs bread and she shook her head “no” and walked off from the waiter. So much so we needed to get the hostess at the front door for assistance.

The food was nice. Very good. I would recommend the food. Just not the service. Was not hospitable. We were left in the corner unattended throughout our time while other tables were getting attention.

We noticed an older couple came in next to us who seem to have known our waiter. He came back to them several times but never to us. So much so again we had to hunt down the hostess at the front door for our check.

When we got our check there was no nicely greeting, no asking how things were, or have a nice one .. nothing we were just not spoken to. My boyfriend and I are big tippers. We tip all the time and are not ones to not. But this guy had us so upset we decided not to.

When we got up and left we were not spoke to nothing. No one said have a good night, thank you, come again, etc.We walked out of the front door and the sever then comes flying out of the door and rudely approaches my boyfriend and says “was there an issue? Why was I not tipped?”. My boyfriend got right back at him and explained you barely spoke to us or attended to us we were not tipping you. He was ready to fight with my boyfriend, especially in front of others. Ignored us the entire night but had no issue running out to speak to us when he wasn’t given a tip!

It was totally unprofessional and uncomfortable environment. I will not...

We were there as a family celebrating a birthday on a Wednesday evening. I’ve heard great things about this restaurant, but this was my first time there and I wasn’t very impressed. The food portions were very small compared to the inflated prices! I ordered spaghetti and meatballs and have had much better quality, larger portions and lower prices at other restaurants. This was super disappointing! I could make better spaghetti and meatballs at home and save myself from this restaurant’s inflated prices. The bread that was brought out to the table was tiny pieces that were stale and completely unimpressive. The block of butter was frozen and difficult to spread on the tiny pieces of bread. The server, Manuel, was asked for more bread and said he wasn’t sure if he could bring us more and had to talk to the chef. I hoped the refill of bread would be fresher then the original bread provided, but it wasn’t. We asked for separate checks before we ordered and the server refused to do separate checks and only provided one check. Once we figured out what we were each paying separately and explained to the server what each credit card should be charged, the server mixed up the cards and charged incorrect amounts to the wrong cards. We finally got that straightened out and corrected. However, the server didn’t bring the refunded and corrected checks to show that he corrected the problem. We had to request them and follow up with our credit card companies to make sure it was truly fixed. My family was further delayed leaving because none of us wanted to leave without proof of the corrected charges. When I expressed my displeasure to the server about the mistakes, the server made a comment about how the restaurant makes thousands and thousands of dollars, as if he was brushing off my comment as insignificant. I then made a comment to the hostess about the issues and the server overheard and said that we were making a big deal over nothing and getting him behind with his other tables as if the mistakes he made were our fault. Finally, another man came from the back to reassure us that the charges were corrected. He was nicer and seemed better trained on proper customer service.

This restaurant needs to improve the quality of their meals and provide more realistic portion sizes compared to the prices they are charging. Also, their servers could use more training in customer service. The one positive part of the experience was the gentleman doing the valet parking. He was nice and personable. However, I will never go back. I’ve been to much better Italian restaurants with better quality food, bigger portions, better prices and kinder servers with better...

We had birthday / graduation party for our college graduate with a group of 10 last night(a Saturday) and we had a wonderful experience. Our reservation was for 7:45PM and we were seated near the piano where there was a man playing a guitar through the evening. Our waiter, Karim, was very prompt and attentive and got us going on appetizers quickly. He was always there when we needed him but service wasn’t rushed. The food was excellent. Before our main dishes, we ordered quite a few appetizers and a couple of pastas for the table: the grilled octopus with cannelini beans, calamari, a burrata / tomato / prosciutto special, meatballs, gnocchi bolognese, penna with vodka sauce, and Caesar salad. Aside from the Caesar salad, which was still perfectly good, everything was anywhere from excellent to outstanding. A special nod to the octopus which can be hard to get right, and was perfect. Only thing to note was that the meatball appetizer only comes with two meatballs that were a bit on the smaller side, but we were able to add to our order easily as needed. For the entrees, Karim was very highly recommending the Dover sole, which I think is broiled with a generous amount of olive oil and lemon, and on his recommendation many of us ordered it. It was terrific, on par with what I’ve had at top notch / high end seafood restaurants in NYC. It was broiled perfectly - firm but not overcooked - and was extremely flavorful. Others had the prime rib (which was a generous portion and was excellent), the chicken parm (which was very good but on the small side) and the rigatoni amatriciana and tortellini (which were good portions and were also excellent). All non-pasta entrees came with roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts which we enjoyed very much. We want to call out one of the specialty cocktails that were being served: the mango habanero whiskey sour. It was one of the best cocktails I’ve ever had and was very popular with our party. It does have a bit of a spicy kick, and tasted fantastic. For dessert, there were a variety of cakes to choose from. The cheesecake was exceptional. The other cakes were good but not on the same level.

But all in all, a fun and thoroughly enjoyable experience! It was our first visit and we’ll be sure to go again...