Trattoria Il Mulino — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

We visited for dinner during our stay in Nashville. We were optimistic because of the reviews we read that we'd have a great dinner. Big prices always mean great food, right? Well...

We started our experience with a great waitress. She was attentive, friendly, helpful, and generally awesome. She told us she was helping a waiter for the evening which made us think she was training. Nope - she and another waiter split the tables in their section. This is the way they do things here. We'd already started to build a great rapport with her and she was working our appetizers and drinks and then along comes the other waiter. He was very nice and all but it was weird for him to come up to our table and start to sort-of take over. It was fairly awkward and honestly detracted from the great service we'd already received. My wife and I were confused about what was really going on and who was really our waiter.

We had to ask for bread for our table and when the girl with the bread arrived we were asked to choose which bread we wanted and how much. Excuse me? Just bring me a bowl of bread. The bread was not offered with any butter, so we had to ask for that as well. We received about half a stick of butter cut up into irregular and larger-than-tablespoon pieces which were placed on a saucer which was then placed over a cup of boiling water to soften. It melted the butter well, but the overall presentation was weak. When I go to a nice restaurant, I don't' expect to have to have a contraption such as this to get soft butter. Just bring me softened butter. This was like "we don't give butter, but if you want butter, fine here's some butter".

After quite a while our ceasar salads arrived. At $10 each we were prepared to be wowed. Unfortunately the only "wow" was at the price for such a disappointing salad. The salads were comprised of about a cup and a half of lettuce with a very bland caesar dressing. The portion was fine, but I make far better dressing at home. It was barely seasoned, had no depth, and it was watery. Quite disappointing, but dinner would be better, right? Well...

We were surprised that the $32 chicken parm was a-la-cart. That's right - no pasta. You could add pasta for $10 to bring you dish to a total of $42. Ok, since this is such a thoroughbred place the chicken parm should knock my socks off - I went for it. Boy was I disappointed. The chicken was pounded beyond flat into about a 7" disc. I guess this is intended to make it cook fast? I dunno. The breading was panko-based and was woefully underseasoned. I found the sauce somewhat underseasoned and underdeveloped as well. It didn't' feel like a lot of "love" had been added because it was quite acidic and fairly one-dimensional. The worst part is that the flatness of the chicken had backfired on the kitchen and my chicken was over. It was dry and chewy in the places that weren't quite 1/4" thick. It took so long to get to our table that I didn't say anything for fear of having to wait for another that would likely be overcooked again. The margin for error is so tight for such a thin piece of meat so the odds aren't in the kitchen's favor. Overall I found my chicken parm very, very underwhelming for the $32 price tag. If you're gonna charge that much you'd better knock my socks off, and this wasn't it.

I was very underwhelmed by this place. We eat at expensive italian restaurants all over the country including Vegas, Napa, Chicago and in our hometown of KC. This place was on par with the more expensive places for expense, but not execution. Three stars because of the nice atmosphere and our lovely waitress. Two stars on...

Our trip to Trattoria Il Mulino was incredibly disappointing. TLDR version is that the food was solid but the service was terrible. Furthermore, the food was expensive for what it was - $25 for a pasta dish before adding protein - so one would hope the price indicated high quality service.

We made a reservation for 8:00PM on a Thursday. At the time, we did not realize the restaurant closed at 9PM on Thursdays, but we saw reservations available until 8:45PM and the restaurant is part of a hotel off Broadway, so it did not occur to us that it would close so early.

I initially was very happy that the restaurant had phone chargers available in exchange for your photo ID and the server quickly brought one out. We decided on wine and considered putting in our food order at the same time as drinks but some of our party was still hesitant about their choice, so we opted to wait a moment before ordering.

The server soon returned to inform me that the wine I ordered was not available and then primarily attempted to upsell me on a few other choices that he did not have very much information about. (Which is strange as he offered a few times before to assist with wine choices.) I chose a bottle that was more expensive than my original choice which he proceeded to pour across me and my friend who was sharing the bottle with me. He also rested the bottle neck on the rim of our wine glasses which was a bit disappointing after being upsold on the wine.

At this time, we're ready to order but also chit chatting a bit at the table - which I know can be a bit frustrating as a waiter needing to get attention from everyone at a table of five. When he urged us to pay attention he LOOKED AT HIS WATCH which at the time I thought was a gesture I misread at a glance, but when our group discussed the experience later, it was clear he somehow thought this was an appropriate way to indicate we were taking too much time to order. This was further confusing because we had not been greeted at the table especially quickly, and even after we said we'd like another minute to look at the menu, it was quite a while before he returned (which was odd because I think it was clear that we had a few people trying to decide between items and would be ready quickly).

The restaurant had a truly delightful complimentary bread plate with salami and a spicy eggplant spread that was a unique and delicious touch. Our food comes out fairly quickly - we got two of the spaghettini with meatballs (great), the capellini with creamy pistachio pesto (good, but needed a bit of salt), and one of the pizzas (underwhelming). The server did not return to our table for ages after we got our food, and my friend and I who got the capellini were eating slowly in hopes that we could get salt for the remainder of our pasta.

Finally, we wrap up. (I realize at this point that my water has been empty since we got our entrees.) The server was clearly annoyed about splitting the check five ways (which I realize is frustrating but his attitude was so unprofessional) and to wrap it up after bringing our check, he collected them almost immediately after they were signed. I walked out then, but in hindsight, we should have left after he looked at his watch.

Our...

Knowing you are going to spend quite a bit of money and then seeing at least a fair amount of three and four star reviews when you know you should be seeing probably next to zero doesn't exactly give you warm fuzzy feelings. In town for a conference. However, this restaurant was recommended by someone who has been to downtown Nashville and so we visited tonight! Within walking distance of the Convention Center, the Omni, Broadway, and Bridgestone Arena. We were a bit early for our reservations but were seated immediately. The service was amazing and we had two servers both of whom were very knowledgeable about the wine and dinner menu. I'm a wino and knew more about the wine list than I was letting on, but they gave extremely solid recommendations. We were just about the first people in the place, and sat right near the wine lockers which is really a pretty incredible display. I had read several reviews about the food being bland. Well, it is not. If you want food that is appropriately salted and spiced, with excellent Italian herbs and great balance, this is the place for you. Their wine list is actually pretty decent. They have some bottles that are insanely priced for what they are (AKA, not that they are bad wines, they are actually very good wines but have next to no age on them. Why would somebody pay $700 for a 2011 Solaia Reserve when that wine is still extremely asleep??). The second label wine by Ornellaia was very good and matched well with the calamari which I did not photograph because it was pretty much destroyed by the time I thought to get a picture of it. One of the pictures is the prosciutto and arugula pizza, which was very good. The meatball pizza was also very good, marinara was really very good. The salmon is pictured here with a little crust on top of it and was very good. However, I would say the best thing of the night was the salted caramel gelato. Never even thought to have a combination of salted caramel and gelato, but this stuff was absolutely incredible. I almost asked if there was a way I could get a pint of this to-go. Knowing I was going to get some really strange looks, I didn't ask! Would definitely go back here again. To everyone, don't fear the three and four-star reviews that are predominantly complaining about food not being oversalted and the price. This is post COVID, in a town that is notoriously expensive so if you can't afford to go here then You probably just need to go to McDonald's and call it a night. We enjoyed ourselves here immensely. The bill? Yes, it was ugly. But we enjoyed every minute of it and the...