Osteria — Restaurant in Lower Providence Township

Thankfully the food tasted pretty good, my husband said the chicken parm was delicious and the veggies in my pasta dish were very fresh. They have a great menu. We went here after our small wedding at our home (thanks COVID). I had a reservation that I needed to add one guest to that morning and I didn’t really get an answer, the person on the phone just kind of freaked out and told me to call back. We arrived and some of the staff were downright rude about the extra person, the hostess just grabbed a chair to stick at the end of our table like a normal person would, so we appreciated that. Note: it was not crowded inside and the tables are definitely not 6 feet apart anyway. The service was SO SLOW, like a glacial pace. I’m not one to complain, we were with family, all chatting and having a good time, but we were there for an hour before our waitress even took our order. I could have understood the wait for food, a larger party takes a while, but that was just to take our order! One in our party ordered a drink and more than 40 mins later, still no drink. When we asked for the third time, the waitress gave us a snippy response. It took forever for salads to come out (salads!). Our waitress accidentally switched two orders, which was fine by that point we were starving and didn’t care, and she was rude about her mistake. Even more time went by and we finally got our food, two hours after being seated. Some dishes were delicious, some had obviously been under a heat lamp for a while because they were cold in the middle. Our waitress pretty much ignored us after we got our entrees, we all needed a water refill, had to ask the hostess twice for our check. There were not many people there, obviously COVID restricted the numbers, maybe they’re extremely short staffed? Or they didn’t like my wedding dress? They did have a band in a tent out back, maybe those people got all the attention. Regardless, we will not be going back. We recently moved to the area and I was so excited to find our new Italian...

The interior is nothing to write home about, but it’s not dirty. One odd thing was the music. Rather than playing a cd or something they just turn on the radio. Which means you have to sit through commercials, which I have never heard of at a restaurant. Still that can be forgiven as long as the food is at least tasty. Sadly that wasn’t the case. The oil on the table was watery and had an almost clinical after taste. The salad is something you would expect to see at a strip mall pizzeria, a thick puddle of dressing on top of soggy lettuce with a giant tomato wedge. The mushroom soup was bland and tasteless. As for entrees, my veal saltimbocca was slimy and unappetizing. It was completely drowned in a puddle of sauce which destroyed the texture of the meat. My side of gnocchi were tough and chewy and the tomato sauce that topped it tasted like Ragu. The other two at the table had similar issues with their entrees. In the form of undercooked meatballs and a seafood dish that was 80% pasta even though we asked for light pasta.

The wait staff was very prompt and friendly which was the one positive of this place.

I was very shocked by the quality of the food given the high reviews this place seems to have (4.7 stars). And it wouldn’t be so bad if each entree wasn’t $25. At those prices one would expect incredible food. This isn’t even close to the quality of Olive Garden which is...

I paid my bill and even left a 25% tip ONLY because I know some places are understaffed right now and I have sympathy for that. However, unexpected price raises and total lack of even attempting to service my girlfriend and myself was unacceptable. Staff was friendly but not enough to make up for the over an hour wait for our food while over the course of that hour not a single employee stopped by our table to see if we at least wanted another drink or anything. I wanted to just cancel our food order, pay for our round of drinks and leave but I couldn't even flag somebody down. By the time our food came out I asked for the check and to go boxes because I just did not even want to be there at that point. Then the check comes out and was more than 30% over what the menu had the prices listed at. There was a notice on the table saying prices went up 10-15%, then the check comes out any everything is 30-40% above the menu price. Total scam, I wanted to support local businesses and understand they may be understaffed but this is just unacceptable.... Update: My lobster ravioli tasted horrible when I tried to heat it up for lunch the next day, so that was a nice...