MAMA Oakland — Restaurant in Oakland

Tl;dr the actual human service is great, but the overall service and experience is disappointing.

Note: visited for restaurant week. Menu is $45 instead of $35 and comes with focaccia and meatballs for the table (basically 2 slices of focaccia and 1 meatball per person). There is an arancini option for vegetarians.

Total bill: 2 pre fixe menus, 4 glasses of wine: $210.

Service:

Mama’s uses a main server and then drops everything with a team, so it’s a very refined experience. Service was personable and helpful!

Mama’s charges a mandatory 20% tip, which I’m not a fan of. First, you pay tip ON TOP of all of the Oakland taxes and fees, not just the food charges. Second, there is a health and wellness charge baked into the bill that is not publicized. From my perspective, this is a huge knock against the ownership and colors the service under a poor light. If you feel like your staff deserve a pay increase, then give them a pay increase and reflect this in your menu pricing. Frankly, I don’t think the menu is worth a 20% increase (see deep dive).

Atmosphere:

We sat in the parklet. The weather was really nice, but the parklet feels a little rough. This is enhanced by the near constant barrage of motorcycles, dirt bikes, and ATVs driving by doing wheelies. There is a decent amount of sidewalk traffic as well. I think Mama’s should drop the parklet. There is no way of preventing the street noise, half of the parklet is unshaded, so the sun gets in your eyes, and it doesn’t seem to match the ambience inside.

Parking is street parking, challenging to find super nearby, but you can probably get a spot within 1-2 blocks.

Deep Dive on Food:

1st course was excellent, super creative. We had the potato leak with prawns and clams. Very flavorful, bright with a bit of heat. We also had the beet and burrata salad, which was excellent.

The focaccia was good, loved the garlic oil. It was a little dense from my perspective, but the rhubarb onion jam and ricotta really elevated this.

2nd course: everything was good, but not noteworthy. We both had the sugo, but someone else at the table got risotto. The pasta was a little on the gummy side (like right between Al dente and overcooked) and was a little bit light on the sauce. The meatballs are good. Frankly, I prefer them on the sandwich you can get on Thursdays [?], by themselves they are not super noteworthy.

3rd: the desserts were fine. I felt that the tart needed more “tart”. It was a bit flabby. The Tiramisu had some of the best base in terms of soaked lady fingers and cream, but the tempered chocolate on top was just a miss for me.

Wines: all the wines are super good, but a bit on the pricy side. Everything was $16-17/glass for Italian imports and some local options from Lodi. Interesting wines, but not great value from my...

Mama Oakland is a modern, welcoming nook serving seasonally minded, three-course Italian dinners & a wide range of thoughtful wines. I would ideally give this restaurant a 4.5 out of 5 because of one thing (read review below), but that's not possible here, so I'm rounding it up to 5. The service at this restaurant was top-notch. You are basically getting a Michelin star restaurant experience for a very reasonable price. From getting seated to taking our order to cleaning our table and replacing the utensils before bringing out the new dish, their service was phenomena from the beginning till the end. Our server was very attentive and polite and friendly. The restaurant has indoor, outdoor, and bar seating areas. We were seated inside. The ambiance is pretty relaxed. Since the indoor space is not that big, the place felt very packed, especially with all the foot traffic. Mama Oakland offers a prix-fixe menu, which includes a starter (soup/salad), an entree, and a dessert. You also have the option for some add ons like bread, shrimp, or steak. Our prix fixe menu was $39/person. My girlfriend and I picked the same items for our appetizer and entree but different items for dessert. Our prix fixe menu included

STARTER- Sweet Corn Soup Early Girl Tomato Caesar Salad

ADD ON :: House-Baked Herbed Focaccia

PASTA- Parmesan Polenta & Mama's Sugo Fetuccinie con Crema al Pecorino

ADD ON :: MAMA's Famous Pan-Fried Beef & Pork Meatballs +10

Optional Entrée for the Table (serves 2+) Roasted Head On Prawns Pan Seared New York Steak

DESSERT- Meyer lemon Sponge Cake Tiramisu

From the starter menu, we picked the sweet corn soup. From pasta, we picked the parmesan polenta, and we tried both desserts. The corn soup was very creamy and delicious. There was a small portion of veggies and meat in there, which was a great touch and a good contrast to the smooth texture of the soup. The polenta was really good as well. It had a smooth texture with slight graininess. It was very rich and creamy in flavor. The braised beef was cooked well and was juicy. Desserts is where I have some critique. The tiramisu that we ordered was not a traditional tiramius, and that's okay. It was still delicious as a whole, but the mascarpone cream was very dense and not smooth. Lemon sponge cake was soft, light, and amazing. The cake had just the right balance of sweetness and citrusy taste. The compote, on the other hand, was tart. Those 2 flavors combined were a hit and miss for me. Overall, it's a great restaurant with amazing food, service, and experience. It's definitely...

Oh, MAMA. I’ve heard so many great things about you and I finally had the chance to go tonight. To say I was underwhelmed would be about right.

The pros: service was great, we never really felt abandoned and everyone was on their A game. The servers also put a lot of heart into their work, which shows in how they talk about the food and have an appreciation for the pairings to accentuate it. Bread service was IMPECCABLE. I was so unsure about eating a strawberry jam with herby bread but I’ve never been so happy to have been proven wrong.

The not-so-goods: I’ve read a lot of food reviews about MAMA, and thankfully went with a group of people big enough to share food with. Full disclosure, I got the vegetarian entree but I did try the meat.

The soup was… fine. The way it was served was a darling touch, but it left to uneven servings at the table. I asked the server to top off my co-diners soup because I easily got twice as much as they did (I’m not sure this is something they would have done had I not asked). While the soup was fine, I did find it lukewarm. The salad was great, no complaints there.

I got the lasagna with the mushroom ragu because I love mushrooms, and I knew I’d get to try the meat. Here, the sauce is served on the side (instead of incorporated into the dish), which is cool when executed well. However, this lead to a pretty dry lasagna that was falling apart. I’m not sure what can be done to fix it. The meat entree was good, a more balanced lasagna serving.

I got the chocolate cake for dessert, and it was so, so dry - like I think I’ve had more moist cakes that have sat in my fridge for days. The ganache on top was great, as was the tiramisu gelato. No notes there, but the cake itself left something to be desired. Maybe because it was the end of the night, but I barely touched it after realizing how dry it was. The raspberry tart was runny by the looks of it (I hadn’t tried it).

Overall? I’m really disappointed in the fact that what I’ve read for years did not match up with the reality of the food. A friend described it as bad wedding catering, and I’m quite inclined to agree.

I think at some point, especially when having a prie fixe menu where there are only a handful of dishes, there is a risk in getting too comfortable with the food and resting on laurels. Every dish on the menu was just okay (except for the bread and the salad) and it’s such a shame when most of the menu is just okay. It might be time to R&D some...