Sicily Osteria — Restaurant in New York

I visited Sicily around 5:45 PM for a pre-Broadway dinner, drawn in by the glowing reviews. Unfortunately, my experience didn’t live up to the expectations.

To start with the positives: the ambiance was nice, and everyone we interacted with was pleasant. But beyond that, the evening quickly lost its charm. The biggest issue was the lack of consistent air conditioning. New York was in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave, and the restaurant was extremely uncomfortable inside—at times I genuinely felt like I might overheat. The AC would come on briefly and then shut off again, leaving the room stuffy and oppressive. Whether it was a technical issue or a deliberate setting, it made it difficult to enjoy the meal or even have a proper conversation.

I arrived before my guest, and the service was slow from the start. It took a while before our server came over, and while they were kind once they did, we barely saw them throughout the meal. For a place with such strong reviews, the service felt inattentive.

Now the food. I ordered the Diavola pizza, which I’ve had many times back home in Virginia and always enjoyed. I’ve been eager to try it in New York, expecting even better quality—but to my surprise, the version I get at home was far superior. What I received here was basically just a pepperoni pizza—no spicy peppers, no real heat. We had to ask for red pepper flakes just to get some flavor.

The truffle mushroom pasta was even more disappointing. It was bland, under-seasoned, and lacked any noticeable truffle flavor. The mushrooms didn’t taste fresh, and I had to ask for salt and pepper just to give the dish some life. No one ever offered parmesan, even though I saw other tables getting it.

My guest had a salad and a glass of wine (which was $20 on its own). I had a bottle of sparkling water. The bill came to $125 with tip—for a basic pizza, a bland pasta, a salad, and drinks. Honestly, the quality didn’t come close to matching the price.

All in all, it was an extremely disappointing experience, especially in a city like New York where great Italian food is usually easy to find. I don’t know if the tourist-heavy location near Times Square contributes to the watered-down food, but I won’t be returning. Next time, I’ll take my chances in Little Italy instead.

Because both the truffle pasta and the Diavola pizza were such letdowns, I now find myself on a bit of a mission—to seek out both dishes at another Italian restaurant while I’m still in the city and redeem the experience. I had been genuinely looking forward to this meal, and the disappointment left a sour note on what should have been a fun,...

We visited Sicily Osteria a month ago for our 15-year anniversary. I've always been told to avoid the restaurants close to Times Square, but after seeing the great reviews and the photos of the food and desserts, we took a chance anyway. That was a mistake.

The good: We were greeted by Fabulous Fabio, who was a wonderful host. He has the energy and personality that just make you feel like you belong. He sat us outside and we were prepared to have a nice evening.

The bad: We ordered the Carciofi and Prosciutto e Melone for appetizers. They were ok, but nothing amazing. When it came to the entrees, the food just wasn't good. My wife ordered the Rigatoni al Forno, and while it looked really good coming out, it was essentially noodles with sausage swimming in grease. I ordered the Casarecce, and it was just bland. There was no true flavor to the dish and I didn't enjoy it.

The ugly: I have never had worse service at a restaurant, especially after showing so much promise from Fabio. My receipt says that my server was Juan H, but I honestly am not sure if he was my server or if we had someone else. We waited 15 minutes after being seated to have someone talk to us again. Finally, someone comes over and tells us the specials and then quickly walks away. We were ready to order at that point, but waited 20 more minutes before he comes back to take our order. There are 2 other tables next to us that were seated after us and have their food by this point in time. We should have just left, but we were still hopeful for the food. Once our food came out, our waiter never talked to us nor came to our table. He walked by us plenty of times to check on the other tables though, and just ignored us. We even heard him give the dessert rundown to those tables. We had to ask someone else who was clearing tables if we could have our check. After the disappointing food, and the lack of service, we weren't risking another letdown with dessert. Finally, our server came back so we could pay. Once you have paid, there's a survey, which I was all ready to take. I hit the dissatisfied button, and he then pulled the device from my hands saying, "You don't need to take the time to fill out a survey."

All in all, I would say avoid Sicily Osteria at all costs. The food is subpar, and the service is even worse. Fabio was the only bright spot of the evening, but an amazing host won't make up for a terrible dinner experience, especially when celebrating an...

It's really unfortunate I have nothing very good to say about this place. The food looked good but we never received any for the hour we waited. We had a reservation on a busy weekend night - so we were understanding that wait times would be longer and there were large parties being served that night. However, it was very clear that they had major communication issues with each other as soon as we were seated.

We were seated upstairs. A gentleman got us water and put a small dish with one or two pieces of salami, 4 olives, and 1 piece of cheese plus their complimentary bread on our table. After about 10-15 minutes someone came and took our order. We later found out this was the manager. We ordered two drinks, an appetizer. and two entrees. It took 40 minutes to receive our drinks. Somewhere before this time we overheard two tables that were missed completely and did not even had their orders taken for probably about 30 min since their arrival. They alerted staff. And despite being seated after our row of tables they were served food first. Once the 50 min mark came around some of our tables received food but the orders were wrong and patrons were complaining yet again to staff. It was almost comical as food was brought up from the kitchen the staff would look around confused at eachother because it was obvious they had no idea where any of it was going. We finally were there an hour with our drinks finished, no appetizers, no food we ordered. I did ask for our check because we had previous plans and at this point it was seeming pretty grim we would get anything anytime soon. Found out they had never even put in the order for our app but I would have never known until now because no one had checked on us in that hour. The manager came to speak to us but did not even know which table we were and started apologizing to the wrong table. I felt bad for the server she was clearly embarrassed by the whole night. We were not the only table with issues. We offered to pay for the drinks we received without issue but the manager did say it was ok and on them. They also gave us some cold bread thrown upside down in a container to "make up for it" (haha!).

Like I said the food looked ok but we never got a chance. Maybe try on a week night perhaps they can handle the crowds. But for a theater district restaurant I would have assumed they knew how to handle weekend crowds by now. Definitely don't recommend if you don't have...