Harry's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Millington

Italian food is one of my favorites and I've been going to the same Italian restaurant, Gino's, since 1977, and is still open. I REALLY want Harry's to succeed. I can tell someone has sunk A LOT of capital into this place. On the surface, it looks really great. Sound design - bad. They decided a single speaker per room here. Our first visit the host sat us at one of the high tops under one. After a few mins I couldn't take anymore and kindly asked to be moved. Since then we've asked to be sat in quieter places and it seems the hosts hear that a lot. Yesterday, the music was down lower, but now I could hear a person smacking at his food 15 feet away. There are 20+ tables placed in a box of a room with nothing to dampen the sound. Cleanliness - on our second visit shortly after it opened I immediately noticed the front door and handles were covered with greasy handprints. Yesterday, what looks to be an emergency exit from the main back room door had greasy hand prints on the glass portion of the window (it's a windowed door). A table was left unbussed (plates, glasses, crumbs) for at least 15/20 minutes while we were seated, in full view. My linen napkin was still damp that I was using and I didn't notice it until my leg got damp (my silverware was wrapped in this) and a linen napkin was under our table from someone else's dining. Also, the paper menus have grease stains (noticed before). Staff Training - inconsistent service (no training in place?). This place books itself as upscale (from it's prices), but the servers' experience is all over the place. The server that helped us yesterday made us wait to order food until after she took and retreived our drink order (because she was running her internal script?). We had been seated for at least ten minutes before she came over, and we were fully ready to order our drinks and food by this point. I asked for balsamic to go with the bread and she forgot it and I had to ask for it a second time. It is extremely odd that an Italian restaurant doesn't serve balsamic vinegar for the bread and this is a habitual ask. And we always seem to have a new server every time we visit. Also, I asked for two cannoli to go with the bill and she kept saying "cannolis". Sure pedantic here, but cannoli is plural already. Cannolo is singular. You buy one cannolo and two cannoli. Food - the food is very good, but there seems to always be something a little off. Feta cheese in Italian things (are we Greek or Italian). The margarita pizza had chunks of cheese that seemed to be sliced string cheese? (Should be shredded buffalo mozzarella). My partner's dish usually has way too many sun dried tomatoes (1/4 cup?). And the house salad has way too many croutons (1/2 cup+?). A final thought on the food, the server proudly mentioned that the "cannolis(sic)" were made "in house." Which is great and I would expect your desserts to be made in the restaurant of this projected "caliber," yet she had not drizzled them with chocolate. They were also a plain shell with mascarpone filling. They were not chocolate coated on the interior, coated with nuts or mini chocolate bits or anything else that you would get in any of the thousands of bars that line Italian streets (coffee shops with cases that are all filled with handmade pastries). Italian knowledge - The name "Harry's" - The Italian alphabet does not include J, K, W, X, or Y. They are letters of foreign origin, so you would find it highly unlikely that any Italian would ever name their child Harry. It just hits the ear's wrong for the name of an Italian restaurant and I feel this name for this restaurant is a signpost of what's ahead. Again, I REALLY DO want this place to succeed. Inconsistent service, thoughtless sound experience, questionable cleanliness, fundamental lack of what it means to be Italian - these are the things I feel this place needs to work on to elevate it to the level of its prices that it lists on its menus,...

Our take on Harry's after our first visit:

#1. Parking. It was so full, we had to park in the lot next door because there were no empty spots. Sounds bad, but it wasn't. Crowded places are crowded for a reason. (See below)

#2. Customer Service From the moment we walked in, we were treated like welcomed guests. From the greeter, to the barmaid, our waitress and all other staff members all get 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟.

#3. Availability. We were told it would be a 90 minute wait for a table. We decided to stay and had a glass of wine at the bar. The wait was around 75 minutes and we watched everything around us. All of them worked fast and hard, there was no slackers, it spoke well of management.

#4. Food Menu was full of great choices. We went with 2 shared appetizers, a shared pasta and 2 entrees. How they were below: A. 2 Appetizers: Fried Calimare - Perfect. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. Tasty Bruscetta - Perfect. Excellent blend of frest tomatoes, basil, feta cheese chunks, Parmigiano and basalmic vinegaette drizzle. The bread was toasted and crispy, but soft center. So very very good. B. Primo piatto Pasta. We ordered Pasta Carbonnara. We got a penne pasta with mushrooms, dried tomatoes, onion and a creamy sauce. It was not Carbonnara, but it was so so good. Carbonnara is a dish created by American and Italian soldiers during WWII. They merged the breakfast ingredients from the American side-cream, bacon, & eggs, and the Italian side-pasta, cheese. Their recipe had none of these ingredients, but I'm not complaining, it was a super good recipe and I plan on trying to copy it at home. C. Secondo Piatto Entrée #1 - Cedar planked Grilled Salmon filet paired with Broccolini. Very good, cooked perfectly. The salmon was seasoned well, slightly crispy outside, soft and tender inside. Broccolini was firm, not soft, flavored well. Entrée #2 - Tuscan Pepper Steak served over Asiago Polenta. Steak was perfectly cooked, medium rare. It had a variety of peppers, onions, garlic and seasoning and lots of juice drizzled over the polenta. The polenta was some of the best I've ever had. This Entrée is going to be hard not to order next time we come. I love variety and usually order different things next visit, but I "may" not do that next time. Vino The wine list was good, but they could add some better wines and increase the choices by each category.

Overall, this place was well worth the wait, worth the time and I would upgrade the restaurant from a nice Italian restaurant to a Fine Dining Restaurant. All categories exceeded our expectations. We have lived in Italy twice. We are not "experts" but we have had some real Italian meals made in Italy by Italian chefs all over Italy. Harry's is the very best Italian Fine Dining place in Memphis in our opinion. Warning: It's not "American-Italian"........... It's Italian-Italian, meaning it does not have the adjusted foods, flavors or tastes Americans prefer, like Chicago pizza for example. Eating here was like eating in Italy, not in an Italian restaurant in America with American influences. Just pure Italian. ...

Harry's Italian Restaurant is arguably not just some of the best ITALIAN food I've had, its some of the best FOOD I've eaten. I just recently traveled to Chicago on business, and ate at two of the highest rated Italian restaurants in downtown Chicago and I dare to say Harry's is on par with them! I wish I didn't live on the other side of the country, because I'm not sure I can live without Harry's now that I've visited. I visited on a very busy Wednesday evening in between the holidays, so lots of big family groups at the restaurant and it was VERY busy and very chaotic. I could tell right away that the host staff was a little frazzled but they were incredibly polite and noticeably putting in all of their effort to accommodate their guests. I did an online early wait list option and checked at the host to get an accurate wait time estimate. The online list had me listed with four groups ahead of me, with some groups waiting for almost an hour. With my much smaller party of just two, we were seated MUCH sooner than estimated which was a pleasant surprise since we didn't not mind to wait. Our waitress quickly came by to take our drink and appetizer orders. We did get our drinks and appetizer of Tre Meatballs (more on these to come) promptly, but we did have to wait and ask for silverware a couple of times. The restaurant was very busy and the staff was working very hard so we did not mind, the appetizer was steaming hot, and needed to cool regardless. On to the food. The fresh bread is baked just right for a very fluffy warm dough that dips so deliciously in the herb and seasoned olive oil drizzle. The Tre Meatballs, which I ordered to share with my dinner companion, were nothing less than perfect. The blend of meat was seasoned and cooked exactly to the right temperature to keep them incredibly tender and juicy. The marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese topping were balanced, and they were plated and garnished beautifully. I ordered a bowl of the Zuppa, which to me was the weakest part of the meal. I don't think it is any fault in the soup itself, the menu clearly states "creamy" Zuppa Toscana Soup. I prefer my Zuppa a little on the spicier side. If it were up to me the soup would have featured less potato, and more chopped kale and Italian sausage. Nevertheless the soup was good, just not my preferred preparation style. For my main course I ordered the Carbonara with chicken. I've eaten authentic chicken carbonara before, Harry's version is not conventional, but it takes a classic dish and puts a very original spin on it. The cream sauce married perfectly with the flame broiled chicken breast, pancetta, mushrooms, sun dried tomato, and green onion! I intended on ordering the New York Cheesecake or the Tiramisu, but alas, I did not have enough space after our full meal to order a dessert. I'm just glad I have something to look forward to the next time I visit this quaint little Tennessee...