Taliercio's Ultimate Gourmet — Restaurant in Middletown Township

So my partner and I were interested with this place because it was local and I came across one of their TikToks promoting the business. The other attractive deal is you ring their bell and get some free fried raviolis, cool. So we get there and at first glance it definitely has a local vibe and their sandwich menu was expansive, which was a plus. My next point is a negative or positive depending on the customer: Nothing has a price on it, so it was tricky to predict how much you’re going the pay. Not just the sandwiches but prepackaged chips, drinks, nothing had a price on it. Could have I asked staff the price for each item, technically yes, but it would be somewhat obnoxious to do so. The selling point could be “it’s so good you would pay any price for the sandwiches”. But in this case… I’ll come back to that point. It took them about 10 minutes to make our sandwiches so we had time to really browse their items and the negatives come in here. It seemed fairly clean at first but there’s a spot between one of the fridges that, while a tight space, someone could clean it, and it looked soooooooo grody. In my opinion, if I was an owner of a food establishment, if a customer can see the space, it should be clean. Off putting to say the least, but ignoring that we still have to ring the bell and get the promo-ed raviolis. DING goes the bell! And nothing happens. None of the staff speak with us, no excitement, and I’m not expecting them to roll out the red carpet, but this is the prime time to engage the Customer. To further clarify ringing the bell is special because it’s supposed to signify you are a first time customer and with no reaction from the staff we just continued to wait off to the side. The chef who took our order seemed nice enough, but the cashier was not engaged at all, gave us the price, and that was it. No interaction, and by that time no one else was in the store, so they were not busy making more sandwiches or cleaning. Just there. Finally we get the sandwiches home and we dropped about $45 for two sandwiches, two bottles of soda, and $2 bags of chips (plus free raviolis). The price did not match the cost at all. It was fine, not bad, but for a local place sitting on shoulders of Italian family tradition, we did not feel the sparkle. This was further emphasized when we visited a local deli 45 minutes away, same size, same local feel, almost the same pricing and we were blown away. The only other plus was the fried raviolis tasted great and better than my sandwich. Overall, do I recommend this place? Sadly no, and I really wanted to but we left too disappointed to return.

One final note. They almost let us walk away without paying. After our items had been bagged up, my partner mentioned to the cashier, who was insistent that we were all set in a rather dismissive tone, that we had not paid yet. The cashier, without speaking a word, got to ringing us up. The cashier did eventually apologize for the confusion, but she still spoke in that exact same...

Our first time to finally get here, YAY! We live in Belmar and Weehawken and go back and forth all year long so this past Sunday we did the north trip and stopped in. First of all the people are wonderful, so friendly, accommodating, attentive and smiling. The store is immaculate and the food was so enticing we just brought a smorgasbord of things to try for our first visit. Here's the list: Braided fresh bread, Tuna fish salad, Nutella Empanada's, Mini Arancini balls with peas, meat and mutz, (they have several kinds of arancini to pick from) Broccoli rabe with olive oil and garlic, Eggplant Parmesan Stromboli, Vegetable soup, Chicken Noodle Soup, Cinnamon Crumb bowtie cookies, Thin sliced Bell and Evans chicken cutlets, E-Tali Sandwich (Fried Veal Cutlet, Hot Sopresatta, Fresh Ricotta and Marinara Sauce) They were nice enough to offer to put the sauce on the side as we were traveling and he didn't want to make the sandwich be too wet. My husband dipped it to his hearts content later in the day. And lastly the famous fried ravioli! We have found our new favorite Italian deli in Central to the Jersey Shore! Truly everything we purchased gets 5 stars across the board. The value is also a huge 5 star rating. All the hype we heard about the ravioli's is SPOT ON TRUE! The pasta /cheese ration is insane and delicious, plump, not greasy at all, AMAZING! We ate 6 of them before we left the store and ordered another dozen to take home. The thin cut chicken cutlets were a better price than the grocery store and really superior in quality. $6.99 a pound for Bell and Evans cutlets...Wow. Sliced thin and ready to fry them up. The Chicken soup had homemade noodles and chicken meatballs...yum...The vegetable soup was chock full of veggies. We plan to keep trying different soups each trip to determine our favorites. My husband is still talking about his E-Tali sandwich and the homemade ricotta that was spread on the veal cutlets. Needless to say he wants to bring home some homemade ricotta our next visit. Anyway, you get what we are saying. Your store was the highlight of our weekend, we plan to come by again this weekend to try out some more of your fabulous food. You are definitely going to be part of our rotation to fill our fridge. We look forward to utilizing the catering this coming summer as well. I love to cook, but I will say your kitchen is super impressive and I will be happy to share anything made from here with my family and friends. Thank you, we are super thrilled to become a regular. Our best...Licia and...

I've never actually visited Taliercio's in person, but I've gone to several events catered by Taliercio's this year - and I have been blown away every single time. Their food is absolutely PHENOMENAL. I used to believe that nobody in Monmouth County could do Italian-American-style catering better than DeMarco's - but now I think DeMarco's may have met its match.

My husband's brother just got married this past Saturday and Taliercio's catered it. Lemme tell ya, they didn't disappoint! Everything was absolutely delicious, and I definitely wasn't the only one who thought so. Everywhere I turned, I overheard people raving about the food. In my experience, penne ala vodka at catered events is consistently unremarkable. Some places make it better than others, but I've never come across anything worth raving about .... until two nights ago. Taliercio's penne vodka was literally THE BEST penne ala vodka I've EVER had. Also, I don't know what kind of kitchen sorcery goes into making "Chicken Taliercio", but I've never tasted anything quite like it. It makes all those sad, boring trays of chicken parm and lemon chicken from other caterers seem so dull and unmemorable. Most caterers are the culinary equivalent of Dorothy's drab, colorless, pre-tornado existence in Kansas. Taliercio's is the culinary equivalent of Dorothy waking up in a land full of color. Taliercio's proves that catered food doesn't have to consist of Sterno trays full of uninspiring slop.

My brother-in-law's wedding ended at 10:00 PM and there were several trays of food left (due to quantity issues - NOT quality issues) and it would've been a crime to let all that deliciousness go to waste. My in-laws didn't have enough fridge/freezer space for all that excess food, so my husband and I took several trays home with us. On Sunday, I pulled out the vacuum sealer and went to town breaking down huge trays of food into smaller, more manageable portions. Now, I have a chest freezer full of food from Taliercio's and I'm getting hungry just thinking...