T Marie's Ristorante Italiano — Restaurant in Mobile

I want to start this review with saying that I have been eating at Mirko Pasta regularly since shortly after they opened this location. Pasta is my favorite food and I was happy to see another option to get my pasta fix. I say all that to say that I have seen a steady decline in the quality of food and service in the last 2 - 3 years. Tonight took the cake. We arrived at 7pm and were told there would be a 30 minute wait. That was not a problem, there’s a wait nearly every time I’ve come, so it was expected. We were seated around 7:30. It took another 10-15 minutes for our server to greet us and ask for our drink orders, then it took another 10-15 minutes for us to receive waters. Everyone in our party of 4, ordered glasses of wine. When our waters were brought, we were told the wine would be out soon, and that they were having to get new bottles of wine. When 3 of the glasses were served, we were told that the 4th glass would be out soon and that they had run out of wine glasses. That probably should have been our cue to leave because it kind of set the tone for the rest of the experience. The 4th glass of wine was served in a hot glass and then we were asked if we were interested in an appetizer. We ordered the antipasta. When the app was served, it was served with no app plates, so we had to resort to eating from the wooden serving board. We ordered entrees a little after 8. We were never offered or asked if we wanted additional glasses of wine and had to ask for refills on our waters. When our food was finally served, an hour after we placed our orders, we were told that we did not receive bread because they had ran out and that they were closed. I’m not sure what their closing time had to do with anything as we were seated an hour and a half before they closed. I usually love the food here. Rave about it. Take leftovers home and eat them the next day. It’s literally my favorite restaurant. The food tonight was not even close to food we have been served here in the past. The sauce was bland and tasted and seemed as if water was added to it to be able to have enough to serve us. Usually the pasta is piping hot upon arrival to the table, tonight it was luke warm. We all ate our food, because we had waited an hour and a little salt made it at least palatable. Our server must have told the MOD that we were upset over not being served bread, so she came over and half way apologized and gave us a card for a free appetizer. Then the owner proceeded to come over and apologize for the same thing. That’s when we informed her that the bread was the least of our concerns and explained the disappointing experience we had. She said something along the lines of “I’m sorry for your experience, BUT we had a lot of big parties tonight and people added extra people to their reservations...etc” When we told her how long we waited for our food, she asked the server why it took so long IN FRONT OF US! As if it was her responsibility or fault. The excuse for that was that the kitchen told them to stop putting orders in because they were too backed up. To us, this sounded like a lot of excuses with no real effort to make up for the poor service and food quality. Our checks were dropped before the owner came over and we had our cards out and ready to pay. The owner walked away from the table without taking our payment. It took another 20 minutes for the server to come back and close us out. The whole time we were waiting we watched and could here the owner talking to the chef about what happened. More excuses were made. Between the 4 of us we spent around $130 here tonight and left completely disatisfied. We will...

General: This is a great place for locals or anyone looking for a local Italian restaurant. Though I'd recommend making a reservation in advance so that you can be promptly seated.

Cons: I'm going to start with the cons as I have a lot less to comment on. T Marie's is a smaller restaurant, which means you'll be waiting for a table if you don't make a reservation in advance. It's also the reason you might feel a little too close to your table neighbors. The last con I have is the mushrooms that were added to my pasta. I elaborate further below about the pasta selection, but if I'm paying an extra 2$ for mushrooms, I'd like a decent amount of them. I can spend 2$ at Publix getting a whole container of mushrooms. A few more would have been much appreciated.

Pros: The waitress was very nice and waited on us very well. The atmosphere was not so upscale that someone would feel overwhelmed but very nice for anyone who comes in. All of the food we had was very wonderful. The calamari, the Alfredo pasta, the lasagna, and of course the desserts. I actually really enjoy the pasta selection where you can choose each individual item for your pasta. From the types of noodles, sauce, meat, and veggies. I got a really good helping of chicken and it wasn't overcooked, it was perfect. The Alfredo also had a really great taste even if I could have handled the sauce being a little thicker. They also had live entertainment with a musician. I normally don't like live entertainment as it's generally too loud. However, he was the perfect volume and a perfect fit for the restaurant. If someone needed a more quiet spot, he was near the front so requesting a table in the other adjoining room may help.

Mix: The pricing isn't the best nor the worst I've seen. It's a little high but everything right now is high. They only have three salad options, which for me I would have to decline. I'm a picky eater so unless it's a basic salad with ranch, I'll have to pass. And she mentioned they didn't have ranch at all. The clientele can be more upper-crust folks. There's no strict dress code so a nice/classy casual is no problem, but I wanted to mention it so no one walks in worried they're going to stand out surrounded by a bunch of rich folk. The lemon cake was light and fluffy but barely had a hint of lemon. A great option for most but perhaps a disappointment to someone looking for more lemon. The chocolate mousse was very good but I found it very rich and wishing there was maybe another layer at the bottom of the glass of like whipped cream, a crumb crust, just something to level out the deep richness of the chocolate.

Overall a very enjoyable experience and delicious meal for my family and I. I'm not removing any stars for the above mentioned cons or mixed points as they are minor or of my own personal opinions. I highly recommend checking out T Marie's at least once, maybe over a...

Came to Mirko to have lunch and celebrate a family member's birthday. Staff was polite but wasn't familiar with processes or the menu. At several points during the meal we had to remind the staff of what was supposed to come out with the salads and entrees according to the menu. Three of the people with us said it was hard to taste the food because an excessive amount of pepper was used and it was all that could be tasted. Having read some of the previous reviews I see that the owner has been very proactive to address issues or concerns. Owning a business myself the feedback always gives us a chance to adjust and improve our service. I hope that my review today can be a source of information that can be used to do the same.

Update after reading the owner's response: Being the owner of a business myself I understand the impact of a review on social media and I don't take it lightly. I rarely post anything unless I have had an experience that was over the top or very poor. I definitely don't believe in scolding your customer for their review. My expectation as your customer was for you to try to look into the situation further so you might be able to improve the next customer's experience. This was the first meal away from home for my brother who is a fighting cancer patient recovering from a major surgery. It was his birthday we were celebrating. He did ask for additional pepper because after much radiation his taste buds are very weak. We had a party of 9 people and it took an hour for our food to come out. We understood the wait for a larger than normal party but didn't want to repeat that wait for dishes to be remade. Given the discussion at the table and the request for more parmesan to cover up some of the pepper taste it would have been very hard to not know what's going on unless you weren't paying attention. There were three of the plates that came out that were seasoned in excess with pepper. The spread for the bread at the beginning of the meal was forgotten until we asked about it. The apples were left off the salad until we asked about it. The "grilled homemade bread" was left off of the Zuppa di Pesce and when we asked about the bread that was supposed to come out with that dish one of the two waitresses serving our table brought out some rolls. We specified the homemade bread and were asked "Did you order it that way?" We had to remind the waitress that it's the bread that the menu says is served with the dish. The drinks were kept full but there were many checks and balances that just didn't take place. This was our experience and I hope it doesn't go this way for future guests. My intention is to provide you with feedback that you can use to improve your business and certainly...