Melini Cucina Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Morehead

Not impressed. We just ate there today. The food isn't bad but there are several problems with this place. First off there is to much moisture in the air. First problem was salt shakers, I ended up going through 4 or 5 and they stopped brining them to me. There is no rice or anything to soak up moisture and they kept clogging. Then I started checking the lids on everything. Found several with that all over the bottoms of the lids. Parmesan cheese was next. First was rusty. Was brought a second one and since they didn't bother to look because it was grabbed off another table i did. Guess what? More rust. They then brought out a cup of parmesan cheese and stopped bringing me shakers all together. None of the other in the restaurant were checked. I started looking around more. There were a decent amount of ceiling tiles that were sagging. Not from age but that happened from moisture. Then noticed all the condensation built up on the air vents. Some were dripping and had buckets under them. There were others above tables and ppl were still being seated at those tables. As I was leaving and Looking around I saw more sagging ceiling tiles. Some were at one point wet because of the nasty discoloration. Others had black on them. Yeah, that's called mold. I'll bet if you pull down some tiles that's exactly what you will find. I don't know how they have a 96 on their health inspection but it makes me wonder what the kitchen looks like and how bad of a job the health inspector is doing. If this restaurant cared at all you would see replies to bad comments asking for them to come talk to them to make things right or at the very least apologizing for a bad experience. You can take this as I won't be back. I still feel a little sick to my stomach...

Melini’s in Morehead is one of my favorites for a superb classic Italian meal.

They are locally famous for their authentic Italian Calzones and I give any of those variations a solid 8.9/10 (a very high score for those of you that follow my reviews)

The pizza:

I recently ordered a pepperoni and cheese because they surprisingly had not heard of a classic margarita pizza before, which is fine and she even tried to accommodate by adding some fresh basil (not understanding it’s cooked on the pizza, not as a garnish, lol) which I promptly removed, but she was very sweet. The staff are always friendly and accurate.

As for the crust, it’s a bit too dense and thick to be an Italian style pizza. There were no crust bubbles and there was no crunch. I was disappointed overall.

The red sauce is fantastic, and they have some of the best marinara for the calzones, too.

The cheese blend they use is very good and they use the proper amount. Also, while flavorful I have not found it to be greasy.

With a change in the crust recipe they could easily put all other pizza places out of business. It “could” be that good.

Overall current pizza...

I rarely eat here because the food is always bad, but I love Italian so I keep giving it a chance. But tonight was the worst dining experience I've ever had. Ordered the Chicken Vesuvio, which is supposed to be chicken tomatoes and garlic sauteed in a white wine sauce. What I got was capellini in a puddle of pasta water with melted butter in it that had absolutely no flavor, topped with slices of RAW tomato and what appeared to be a steamed piece of chicken hidden under a melted slice of cheese. I'm not usually the type to return food but this was simply inedible. I talked to the waitress and told her I'd like something else instead, and she told me "I'm still going to have to charge you for that." Twice. I told her to just take it back and I didn't want anything. Then she said she could call her manager. I knew the issue wasn't on her so I hesitated because I didn't want to get her in trouble. But when I got a bill for $22 for a meal I didn't even eat (literally took three bites) I told her to call the manager. I didn't have to pay, but after that experience, I will never go back...