Calabria Restaurant — Restaurant in Millbury

First off, I am normally not the kind of person to leave a review. Generally when I read reviews, I picture snooty people at their keyboards who just like to complain about everything, so I take those reviews with a grain of salt. Our experience here, however, will stick with me for a long time...and unfortunately not in a good way. So I'm writing a review to attempt to save people from making this bad decision.

Before I go into detail, I would like to say that our waitress was extremely kind, attentive and pleasant. If I could rate different aspects of the restaurant separately, she would get five stars. The staff in general was great.

The restaurant itself is small, homey and clean. Not the best parking situation, but it was a Friday night and is located on Main Street, so it's understandable.

Now onto the prices. I'm not a big connoisseur of Italian food, but I'm aware that good Italian often comes with a big price tag. That's fine though - I'm not one to complain about spending more for good quality. We had a party of eleven, and for the most part everyone ordered something different - the chicken and broccoli, the veal parm, lamb chops, haddock, etc., we tried it all. And I must say, it was overwhelmingly...mediocre. It all looked great, but the one thing all our meals had in common was the fact that they had NO flavor whatsoever. I ordered the chicken and broccoli with oil and garlic - there was no garlic. It was literally undercooked pasta, unseasoned chicken and broccoli swimming in oil. My husband ordered the lamb chops with a side of green beans - the green beans looked (and tasted) like they came from a can. For a $26 meal, getting canned vegetables is completely unacceptable. If the food had been more reasonably priced ($12 a plate instead of $24+) and had decent portion sizes, I'd just count it as a loss and never think about it again. But it's not. I was honestly expecting some phenomenal Italian food and I could have cooked it better at home. Our total bill was well over $400 and only one person in our party enjoyed their food. I've never been so unsatisfied after visiting a restaurant before and I'm very disappointed. We left hungry.

So, that being said - if you want to pay too much for terribly bland food, visit this restaurant. But if you like being satisfied with what you pay for, and if you like pleasant experiences, I'd recommend...

Bring your appetite! It was our first time here. I was hoping to find somewhere that I didn’t need to go into Worcester to get a good Italian dinner. How did I not know about this place?! From the start…. Easy parking, nicely greeted, and seated quickly. It was about 530PM so on the earlier side but I was impressed with how quickly we had a nice basket of breast and oil (parmigiana cheese on table) and waters right at the table. Our waitress was Brianna. She got two Fs! Fast and friendly. She was smiling and cheerful. She was flying all over the place. My wife grabbed a wine, I had a beer. Both at the table in minutes. The appetizer was scallops wrapped in bacon with a honey dip on the side. It was my first time having scallops and bacon with a honey drizzle on it. At first, I thought it was kind of different, but it turned out to be delicious. Next was the entree. My wife got the Chicken Consentino. The portion was huge. She opted for the fresh gnocchi as the pasta. It did not disappoint. She loved it. However there was so much, she took more than half home. I obviously tried a bite. The gnocchi was delicious, rich and fresh. The wine sauce tasted great but did not overwhelm the dish. The chicken was cooked fine and perfectly cooked. I had to make the choice between Zuppa Di Pesce but opted for the Haddock Ripieno. I think I made the right choice. Again, An enormous dish. The fish alone could make a meal with how big the cut was. The stuffing was loaded with plenty of lobster, spinach and stuffing. The sauce was creamy and full of flavor. I did get a side of mashed potatoes which were great too but I could not stop eating the main course. I did not think it was possible to eat it all. I did have a few bites left at the end but. I didn’t think it was possible to eat another bite of food until my way ordered slice of lemon mascarpone cake. Sweet and rich with a raspberry glaze. Honestly, I don’t know how I walked out! If you are hungry and love Italian food and fresh pastas, you don’t even need to got to Worcester. Millbury has it. Calabria was great. We will be...

The first time we tried Calabria was approximately 1 month ago. I ordered the carbonara and my husband ordered the chicken fettucine alfredo. Both dishes were absolutely delicious. We loved it so much that we ordered from Calabria every week for the whole month. On 11/11/22 (Veterans Day), we ordered take out. The same meals. When we got home and tried it, it was horrible! It was definitely not the same quality. Not sure if it was a different cook or we ordered on a bad night, but it was horrible. Calabria lists the Carbonara as having panchetta. Each time I ordered it previously it had panchetta. The evening of 11/11/22, they must have run out of panchetta because they put regular bacon in it. The worst part was about 90% of the regular bacon was fatty and uncooked, making it inedible. My husbands fettucine was way overcooked and soggy and some of his chicken was undercooked. We paid 30.00 for the Carbonara and 32.00 for the chicken fettucine alfredo.

I immediately called Calabria and asked to speak to the owner as we were both beyond angry. A young girl answered the phone and told us the owner was busy and would call us back. After a half hour when no one called us back, we called again. We were told that the owner was busy in the kitchen and could not come to the phone. We could not believe that the owner couldn't come to the phone and deal with an unhappy customer. It is just bad business practice. I don't care how busy you are. It is now 3 hours later and we still have not received a call from the owner. I CANNOT recommend this restaurant. It is obvious they are understaffed and the owner does not care about customer satisfaction. Calabria just lost a customer. Honestly if the owner had the common courtesy to call us back and deal with the issue instead of ignoring us, I probably would have given them another chance to redeem themselves. Sadly that was not the case. They don't care about Customer satisfaction. Save your money and go...