Prima — Restaurant in Minneapolis

I'd give one star, but the food tasted decent. We went here as a family a few months ago when my sister was in town from out-of-state. Usually, we go to Nona Rosa's in Robbinsdale for family dinners out, but my brother-in-law likes Prima and it's well reviewed so we gave it a try. We made a 7:30 reservation and when we arrived, we were made to wait. I was starving and googling other restaurants in the area when we were finally seated....at 8:15! 45 minutes after our reservation time! Come to find out, there was a table of "regulars" who had long finished their food and were sitting and chatting, and the service staff wouldn't seat us until they had left. Like, really? Why even take reservations if you're not going to honor them? Nothing was even comped for the inconvenience when the bill arrived!

This whole thing made me late to meet up with some friends later in the evening, but it could have been forgiven if the food was good, and it was....or so I thought. The calamari appetizer that we ordered was overcooked to the point of being chewy, but no big deal: I enjoyed the Rigatoni I ordered. That is until several hours later when I woke up in the middle of the night with stabbing pains in my stomach.

I've had this feeling before: food poisoning, and luckily it didn't send me to my bathroom for the remainder of the night, so I chalked it up to my sometimes-too-sensitive stomach. That is until I told my family about it the next day and one of my sisters-- who had ordered the special of the day-- said that the exact same thing happened to her, stomach pain and all!

I haven't been back to Prima, and probably won't be: they got enough forgiveness and second chances from me. Anybody looking for a great Italian restaurant experience should skip Prima and head up north to Nona Rosa's or across the river to Luci Ancora. Sorry, Prima...you blew it!

Edit to Add: So other dissatisfied customers get an invite to call the owner's personal cell number, but Prima gives me and my sister food poisoning, and we get...

Pasta overcooked to almost melt-in-the mouth gooey consistency.

Miniscule thin (single) less than half inch diameter sausage, sliced lengthwise and charred throughout, bitter tasting practically un-chewable. Proudly displayed on top of the pile of pasta: Visually unappealing and obviously incinerated.

Is there no quality control or supervisory staff glancing at the food as it leaves the kitchen?!

This so-called "protein" was an additional over-priced option heavily oversold by the insistent wait person.

Our dining party numbered more than 5 adult friends, most of whom seemed satisfied with their dishes. I would guess our server had a good reason to never ask me how my dinner was! But the busy weekend night was no excuse for what should have been an obvious mistake by the kitchen and wait staff.

And does this restaurant have any clue as to how embarrassing and uncomfortable it is for a very disappointed patron in a relatively happy group of friends to disrupt a celebratory social gathering by interrupting the event with a valid food and service complaint? Think about it.

I dine out often and will definitely not waste my time returning here to chance another mistake even if I was the rare unlucky exception as recipient of bad food and service. Life is too short.

Definitely not recommended.

No reason to waste your time and money to gamble with obvious quality problems. For their sake, I hope someone in management sees this comment and considers implementing and monitoring food quality control and staff training and...

I found Prima doing a search for a good Italian restaurant while visiting Minneapolis for business. It was just a ten minute drive from our hotel. I called to make sure we could get a table and the manager, Amy, who answered the phone couldn't have been nicer. She held a table for us on a very busy Thursday night (there was only one other table open when we arrived around 7:00 PM).

Our server, Becky, was very pleasant and helpful. We ordered a great bottle of Montepulciano from Italy and the meatballs for an appetizer. I'm fussy about meatballs (I know that sounds odd) and these were very good. The sauce was a bit different...it was a tomato red pepper sauce...very yummy. It was served with two crostini but the bread served at the table was so good that we only shared one of the crostini.

For main dishes, we both chose a rigatoni dish. I had the rigatoni bolognese sauce and my husband had the rigatoni rustica with spicy Italian sausage, peppers, onion, swiss chard, ricotta salata in a cream sauce. Both were delicious.

Our server, Becky, was attentive making sure every thinking was to our liking. The manager, Amy, stopped by at the end of the dinner to ensure we enjoyed our meal.

The atmosphere was awesome, too. Small and intimate (we were fortunate we were able to get a table), it had the feel of a small restaurant in Italy. We love finding places like this. We would definitely return on a future visit to the Twin Cities.

Thanks to everyone at Prima for a...