Lilia — Restaurant in New York

I don't know what culinary experience, what alleged dining expertise or palate the people writing these reviews claim to have is but I would have to deeply disagree with the majority of the reviews of Lilia.

For starters, the service at the restaurant was excellent. Everyone was patient with a smile and happy to serve myself and my wife. The atmosphere was nice but a bit loud, and the bar being positioned directly in front of the front door was a bit strange. I would especially imagine this being a problem on a cold night. Otherwise no complaints about service or the experience of the restaurant.

Then, the food came. For background, I am proud to consider myself an experienced Italian from eating all over the country, in every region and in every small town. I have spent nearly every year of my life travelling for at least 2 weeks to Italy, and lived their for 5 months. When I tell you my family would have gotten up and left if they were served what I was, it's an understatement. We ordered the scallops appetizer per recommendation from the waiter (we always ask for recs) and I can't even understand what the thought process was beind this dish. 2 scallops, in a yogurt covered with walnuts for nearly 30 dollars? No effort whatsoever at presentation. Nothing else needs to be said about that one, it's not hard to pan sear a scallop.

Ok fine, hopefully the signature pasta will be good and the ragù, a staple Italian dish. Sadly no. The ragù, as seen in the picture below, was perhaps the most disappointing plate of pasta I've ever had placed in front of me. It looked and tasted like they tossed the pasta in uncooked tomato sauce, sprinkled some sausage on top, and then topped it with store bought Parmesan. It just was not good. It had no flavor, the sausage wasn't cooking into the sauce and the Parmesan tasted like the plastic bins you buy at the grocery store. The signature agnolotti were cold flat out cold. The flavors were there but in my opinion they clashed, especially the sweetness of the sauce and the bitterness of the sundried tomatoes. They again clearly did not cook the tomatoes into the sauce to eliminate some of their acidity. Everything tasted like it was taken out of a container and heated up. Which unfortunately seems to be the norm nowadays with these high end Italian restaurants (yes I've eaten at a few).

Then, dessert. We ASKED the waiter, what should we get?? She recommended the affogato chocolate cake. It was laughably disgusting. I have had better cake from a shitty grocery store when I forgot to bring something to my family's house. And the affogato was literally just melted coffee gelato.

All in all. I cannot take this restaurant seriously and to be completely honest, owning Missy's book and idolizing her; coming into this restaurant because I've found her accomplishments so impressive, I was just so utterly disappointed. I cannot imagine if she sat with us and ate the dishes we were served by her staff she'd be at all happy.

If you don't believe me fine. Go to the restaurant, most Americans who have not had real Italian food don't know and I fully respect that. But please don't come on here touting your eating expertise and claim a place like this, that's riding on hype and serving overpriced, sorry excuses for Italian food, is good.

I really hope some manager or someone sees this review takes it seriously. I wrote a lengthy one because I don't want to just seem like a dumb disgruntled customer. We genuinely had a wonderful time but the food was simply not good, and it absolutely did not have the level of care Italian food requires to be...

My boyfriend and I came in last Monday night for a 9:00p reservation to celebrate our anniversary. We spoke then about our deeply disappointing experience was. To recap the series of events, we wanted to outline the following:

We arrived for our 9pm reservation and the hostess told us to wait in the vestibule in sub-30 degree weather. After 20 minutes, we were allowed back inside. After waiting a while, we checked with the hostess and she informed us that she forgot about us and apologized for seating the 9:15 and 9:30preservations before us. She asked us if she could send us a cocktail in the meantime as a consolation - which never made it to us throughout the entirety of the night.

Finally, we were seated a few minutes after 9:30pm. We were then graciously brought a menu item, which we would have been extremely appreciative of, but given that we had just been told we were getting drinks, felt like the restaurant was attempting to take the less expensive way out of making an apology.

When we then put in our drink orders, they did not arrive until 30 minutes later (after 10p) - over an hour after our scheduled reservation. We ask to speak with the manager because the night went from what was supposed to be special and memorable to instead feeling like we were an afterthought. It was the night of our 3 year anniversary and we have been ecstatic to try Lilia for years. Our waiter also asked if it was a special occasion, which we shared, yet nothing special nor noteworthy was done.

While the manager apologized for the trouble, we feel as though nothing was done to rectify the issue; the only thing done was charging us for the drinks we were initially promised as a consolation for our troubles. We had to ask for those drinks, at the very least, to be taken off the bill since it was the least that could be done and was promised to us previously. We were so fed up at this point and we just wanted to leave.

We are writing this note today because we are still shocked by the level of hospitality a restaurant of Lilia’s prestige is able to exude. Any manager of any establishment should at the very least acknowledge their employees wrong doing - especially when it impacts a customer.

We have friends and colleagues who are regulars at Lilia and were baffled to hear our experience after a long awaited review, suggesting we reach out and speak with the general manager. While we are hoping this was a one off, it still does not excuse the lack of care from the staff and the tarnishing of what was supposed to be a special night. Let alone one that was expensive for us as paying consumers.

We asked that the manager please escalate this to the general manager of Lilia to make them aware of these issues. They said they did, though we doubt it, as we had no other outreach or communication from Lilia whatsoever therafter. We are truly disheartened and do not want anyone else to experience this lacking level of care or empathy...

*EDIT August 2024: The waiter I mention here, Elle T, found me on Instagram, and followed my account, despite my account having no identifying information. Is this something like a silent threat? I called the restaurant left a VM and received no response. I took a screenshot before I blocked her and am willing to share it. I hope the owner or manager do something about this creepy stalker-ish unprofessional behavior.

Horrible experience here. First, when I walked in, the guy asked me "what I was there for" .... obviously I'm there for a reservation. Once I gave him my name, he laughed? which was strange. I was dressed nicely and just waiting for my table. Then, finally after being taken to our table by another girl, we weren't assigned a server or offered water until 10 mins after being there... it was 93 degrees outside and reportedly the hottest day in NYC to date. Already a horrible start. On top of that, then our waitress, Elle T, provided horrible customer service to us compared to the other patrons (who were 99% white). She asked if we had any questions and my boyfriend asked her if she could point out the vegetarian dishes on the menu if she doesn't mind and she literally rolled her eyes. She went "it's pretty straight forward."..... I'm pretty sure that's a normal question to ask, considering some of these places put chicken broth or stock into their pastas. And even if she doesn't think that's a normal question to ask, it's her job to answer it without being rude. I would potentially give her the benefit of the doubt if she had a long day or dealt with rude people because it was 5:15pm but the dinner service did just open at 5 and unless she's been working since 9 AM I can't imagine a polite question upsetting you. She seemed particularly annoyed by us, not sure what we did.... We were exceptionally polite, just had religious dietary restrictions. After getting the food, she kept asking how it tasted etc and we said it was good, for the Mafaldini my boyfriend was like it's delicious but asked for extra chili flakes on the side and again she rolled her eyes! I swear I've never had such a pretentious waiter. She didn't even make the food and she's this upset. In general, we felt there was disdain towards us while we were eating and made us uncomfortable.

This review is only a result of Elle T's pretentious and rude service. Every other person who came to our table- whether to clean it, give us water, check on us, give us the food, was kind. I wish we had asked for a different server would've had a much better experience.

And the last con was that there were so many flies flying around, as said in many other reviews! Gross!

Food was good but unfortunately the overall environment made us uncomfortable and made it hard to enjoy our meal. Service in general was significantly better at Misi (or anywhere else). This place is pretentious and you're better...