Mambo Italiano — Restaurant in Mundelein

Update: 10/20/14 I got in touch with the owner Sal and he could not have been more professional and polite. He had reviewed the cameras and will be making changes. He has rectified the situation and I look forward to trying his establishment again. Thank you Sal for being the type of owner every restaurant would be happy to have.

10\19\14 Let me start off by saying I have NEVER walked our of a restaurant, that it until today. My mother, father, and I went to Mambo Italiano at a 6pm. The restaurant was not particularly busy, there were many empty tables. We ordered chicken parmigiano, scallops with asparagus, and zuppa di pesce. We sat there for 15 minutes waiting for the bread and we were repeatedly told (after asking) that it was "in the oven." Well, after about 18 minutes the bread came out ice cold. There was no way it was just "in the oven." Well after half an hour people were seated at the tables around us and they ordered. Now we're going on 45 minutes and the newcomers had their food. We asked the waitress (who seemed to be new based on her interaction with us) "what seems to be the problem?" She said "it will be out in 4 minutes." Well, now it's 15 minutes after she said "4 minutes" so I go get the manager.(why he had not walked by previously as any decent manager would have I will never know)(even the managers at olive garden walk around and see how your experience is) He walks over and tells us the food is "just sautéing" now we're at about 1 hour and 20 minutes with no food and at this point the waitress appears to be hiding from us. He offered to buy us our meal but we walked out. I am not lying when I say that This was the absolute worst restaurant experience my family and I have ever had. Mambo Italiano should be ashamed of how they treated us and operated their business tonight. Little to say my family and I will NEVER be giving them our business EVER again. Train your wait staff better and get managers that are not just standing by the bar but instead interacting with your PAYING patrons. PS I'm in the food industry so it is extra apparent how badly they dropped the ball. If you are the owner reading this it may be time to make some changes or you will be losing more business than us. We can't be the first ones to have an experience such as...

Update 07/21/23. Sal contacted me right away to ask about my previous visit and get a little more information on what happened. He listened to my experience and invited us back in to try Mambo Italiano. The server we had was Nate and he was nice, attentive and gave us the informative answers we needed when we asked him questions. We had the 4 cheese Cacio Pepe Ravioli which was very rich and good. We enjoyed our food and experience this second time around because of that I have updated my rating and I look forward to coming back to try the other dishes.

I'll start by saying I was excited to try this restaurant as we saw a review for it on check please and it was listed as an amazing place for authentic Italian food. I chose to ignore the bad reviews that share my same sentiments as Im about to express but that wasn't the right decision. My party of 5 arrived and we were greeted by a nice woman, but from the moment we sat down our server Manuel was extremely rude and condescending. We were celebrating one of our friends beating cancer which is an amazing accomplishment and he made the experience less than that. When we asked questions he was sarcastic and acted as if we should've known the answers to these questions. Our food and drinks we had to ask multiple times for them to even get to our table. From the moment we sat down he treated us like trash. The bus ladies were kind but he was horrible. Despite his poor service, everyone left him a tip. He wasn't satisfied with the amount of tips he came out 20 minutes after we left out of the restaurant I guess was his attempt at trying to embarrass one of the ladies in our group. WHO DOES THAT? The food was mediocre sad to say very basic. Horrible experience the service made it worse than horrible. We will...

Mambo Italiano rests in a nondescript part of Mundelein that gives off that "beaten off the regular path" and underdog sort of vibe. The restaurant sits in a strip mall with a few other restaurants, it's the first restaurant you'll see if you're coming in from the south of the outlet. If you happen to drop by, this place will have "free smells" if you're into that.

Tonight we were served by Angel, who made the experience very smooth. Each table has a bottle of olive oil followed by two jars of powdered Parmesan cheese. Service was very attentive comparatively better than an normal day at Biaggi's or a seafood /steakhouse experience. It was nice to receive some complimentary steaming hot bread instead of the one that's been left out there for a while.

I was surprised to see that Mambo's menu has that same issue with a lot of American Chinese restaurants where you see the text and think, "I bet that's delicious, but I have no idea what it should look like", or maybe that there's a greater level of expectations from it.

Portions were adequate. We had two loaves of bread before reaching our entrees. When our entrees made their appearance, I found myself feeling a bit of deja vu.

The Saltimbocca could really use more lemon. I guess most can't stand the acidity, but like Dover Straits, you cannot go wrong with adding more in there when you have parm and butter/EVOO available on the table. I squeezed the acid in and lavishly enjoyed the sauce pull from the linguine.

Like Dover Straits, one thing that stood out to me from entering in was how large the restaurant was after entering in. There's plenty of seating, enough to hold a professional banquet, followed by a frequently used...