Lil' Frankie's — Restaurant in New York

I visited on April 1st, 4:30PM, and we were a party of 6. It was my birthday so when I emailed an entire month in advance to book my reservation, I requested for us to be seated in the back by the greenery. I was told that they would make a note of that seating request but ultimately, it would be up to the discretion of the hostess. Totally understandable. When we arrived for our reservation, we were not seated in the back by the greenery as I requested, we were seated right by the door where traffic was coming in and out of. The restaurant had no one else seated anywhere near us, and there were several other, much more comfortable, seating arrangements available. For 20 minutes we sat there waiting for a staff member to ask us if we wanted drinks/food/anything. I got up to look for the hostess and ask her about the seating in the back. I took a look and saw that there were multiple tables available in the back by the greenery and we would have absolutely fit back there. I finally got a hold of the hostess and asked her if we could please be seated anywhere in the back space and her response was, verbatim, "I will not be seating you in the back". She turned around and walked away. An explanation would have been nice but because it was my birthday, I wanted to make the best out of what was made available to us.I see there are other reviews where customers have shared their own experiences with rude staff members. In the end, we just moved to another booth further away from the door.

30 minutes after being first seated, the server finally makes his way over to take our orders. We then waited for 30 more minutes with no check-in from our server. When the food finally comes out, they brought out 4 out of 6 dinners. 20 more minutes pass and we were all waiting for the 2 missing entrees to come out in order to start eating together. I finally waved someone down to bring to their attention that we were missing 2 entrees and they had no idea. It was annoying, and I also saw other reviews where people mentioned having the same experience.

Once the missing entrees made their way to the table, we all began eating. Right away, we all noticed that our food was cold. My entree, the pasta limone, was not what I was expecting. It was a bland, naked noodle..It wasn't creamy or cheesy at all...2 of my friends who also got the pasta limone felt the same way. We also got several other dishes such as the rigatoni w ricotta & meatballs, chicken parm, the gnocchi, and a margarita pie. We all agreed that the best thing that we ordered was the pizza and the side order of chicken cutlet that my friend ordered with her own pasta limone. The bill came out to $300. We planned on ordering cocktails as well but decided to go elsewhere due to the lack of attentive service. We felt forgotten about and all 6 of us felt that the staff was dismissive and uninterested in our dining experience.

Pros: aesthetically pleasing interior, especially if you can convince them to seat you in the back space. The setting is intimate, super cute and cozy. Location was also a pro because there were other fun things to do around there like Kinky's Bakery, for example.

Cons: Service was non-existent, my reservation request to be seated in the beautiful back area was denied and refused with no explanation why, and the food was cold. The bread that was served to us was hard, as if it had been out for some time. The server was very low energy, the hostess was not the nicest when I asked about...

Lil’ Frankie’s leaves a lot to be desired. Came in with high hopes due to a colleagues rec. brought my partner and had a really bad experience this evening. Arrived and hostess greeted us kindly, We got placed close to the kitchen which was exciting! This was starting off great as we were stopping for a fueling sesh before a night out.

Unfortunately Lil’ Frankie’s dealt a bad hand on us tonight… Service was inattentive, on the menu it states that the staff is not pushy but that doesn’t mean waiting almost 10 mins to get a greeting and a glass of water, server did not greet us and went straight with “are you ready to order?”. Okay… we got over it and placed our orders…

Got a salad to start, the spaghetti lemone and the pasta broccoli for mains. As we’re waiting for food we ordered our drinks a coke and a bottle of sparkling water(important detail for later).

The pear and Gorgonzola salad arrived and the flavor was decent but the presentation lacked big time and was not easy to eat, the greens were cut very large and the pears were chunky and uneven, the candied walnuts were a good pair but again presentation can improve and in turn help patrons enjoy the experience of eating a salad (who wants to have a hard time eating greens?)

Plates and table were cleared for mains. Broccoli pasta was dropped for my partner she waited a couple of mins and I told her to start eating as my lemone pasta had not arrived yet. Reluctantly she began eating, a cpl minutes turns into a few more and nada.

Since we were literally at an arms length away from the kitchen I noticed that the cook was making a bulk order of lemone spaghetti— my guess is he had several orders for different tables, so he plated the big table and sent it out and finally mine came out. Got dropped on the table without any comment from the waiter at all. I tried my pasta and the sauce was not sauce it was lemonade, he had made such a big pot of pasta to save time that mine and probably the other tables got spaghetti lemone soup with a dash of Parmesan. Totally unacceptable.. at this point my partner was about to finish her dish which surprisingly was not bad at all, the broccoli was well cooked, the pasta al dente and well seasoned with a healthy amount of garlic and basil. truthfully I always feel terrible sending back food and starting an argument with a waiter so I ate and finished my lemony soupy pasta and asked for the check.

Waited… waited.. casually noticed the cook grabbing chicken parmigiana fillets with his bare hands 🙈…. Finally got my check and to my surprise I find out on top of the whole experience that a 1L bottle of Pellegrino is $13 LOLz… that is CRIMINAL!!! I’ve never paid $13 for a bottle of sparkling water. Not even Michelin star restaurants charge $13 for Pellegrino.

Such a Big Hype for lil’ substance and...

First, it’s my fault that I fell for a hype man that is Frank Prisinzano. The signs were there on his Instagram cooking sessions with the no recipe and a certain “slight of hand”cooking routine. He talks a good game about the intricacies of different pastas, cheeses and what have you but when you visit this restaurant you feel you’ve been taken by a fraud. I came in with three other guest expecting the best. We were all familiar with Frank and even made some of his dishes by aping the videos and estimating along with adjusting what he flung around on screen. The dishes we made were good BUT as soon as the food at the restaurant hit the table it went south HARD. The pizza was nothing better than Chuck E Cheese, the gnocchi was gummy with no flavor and too acidic, the cacio e pepe was the heathen of the bunch. Sticky, dry, no grease from the cheese, no oil and actually it tasted like off the shelf grated cheese. Kraft at best. I’ve grown up with Italian food, I cook Italian food especially other real chefs recipes with success and just came back from a tour of Italy that took me from west to east coast trying all kinds of wonderful foods. This food is not even in the shadows of what I make and eat. It’s a step above Italian food served on a cruise ship. The service was horrible. We were sharing food and the staff didn’t have the sense to bring new plates than the bread plates we started with. Also we couldn’t get refills on our water. PLUS THERE WERE NO SERVING SPOONS FOR OUR PASTA! That has never happened at an Italian restaurant till now. Frank Prisinzano you are nothing more than an Italian Salt Bae. That’s coming from a chicago first...