Matteo's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Olmsted Falls

This was my first visit to Matteo's. I went with my parents and my mom had been here once before for lunch and said it was good. Our experience on Saturday evening was nothing short of a joke. I had made reservations for the 3 of us at 6:30 pm on Nov. 2. We got there a bit early and was told they needed "every minute" of our 6:30 reservation. We were finally seated in the upstairs dining area at 6:45 pm. The first thing I noticed is that while the downstairs atmosphere was charming, the upstairs was not. The lighting was very bright and the tables looks haphazardly placed. Also, there was cold air blowing from the ceiling vents directly on our table. It was a cool evening so there was no reason to have the A/C on. We had to put our jackets on due to the draft and I noticed other diners also wearing jackets. I had to ask the server if she could turn the A/C off which she immediately did. (I guess she was too overloaded to notice guests wearing coats while seated at their table). It only got worse from there. Our server did come right over to the table when we were seated and took our drink order (1 glass of wine and two soft drinks). I also asked her to put in an appetizer since I had a feeling the kitchen was backed up and it was going to take a while to get anything. After about 5 minutes she brought the glass of wine my dad ordered. After another 5 minutes or so the server returned to let us know that the reason we don't have the soft drinks is that they are out of clean glasses. At that point she took our dinner order. Nothing more happened until 7:15 pm. We had now been seated for 30 minutes and the only item on the table was still the one glass of wine. At 7:15, the server brought the calamari appetizer to the table. She then abruptly stated that they didn't have any clean dishes, sliverware, or napkins available and quickly walked away. So we were left with an appetizer and no dishware or drinks (other then the wine). At this point, we got up and walked out. To leave food at a table without plates or silverware is inexcusable in a restaurant. I don't know if they were short staffed that night but regardless they seemed poorly managed and unable to handle a Saturday evening crowd. Matteo's isn't cheap and I don't feel like dropping a couple hundred dollars at a place that can't even provide silverware, plates or drinks. I doubt if I will...

We have been working our way through all the restaurants in the Olmsted falls area this year. Today's trip took us to Matteo's.

Had a reservation just to ensure we would have a table which seems it came in handy as there were a few large groups already seated when we arrived.

Looking over the menu, there was a good mix of appetizers, salads, pizza, and quality Italian restaurant options on the menu. We ordered the sauteed calmari and the meatballs as our appetizers.

The calmari was prepared well and was not over cooked or rubbery as calmari can get. Had a good flavor overall with the provided red sauce.

The meatballs were amazing! The blend of the cheese, red sauce, and ground meat blend worked extremely well in the dish. They were quite large and a good portion for 2-3 people.

For entrees, we ordered the spaghetti and meatballs, lemon butter chicken, and the manicotti. The spaghetti and meatballs had the same meatballs as the appetizer, which paired really well with the, what seemed to be freshly made, spaghetti noodles. The lemon butter chicken was prepared perfectly with the chicken being fork tender without being overcooked and dry. Paired with linguine noodles and the lemon butter sauce, the dish worked well and was quite tasty. The manicotti was also quite excellent. The mix of the pasta shell with the ricotta filling and paired with a slightly sweet red sauce was perfect.

For dessert, we ordered a slice of lemoncello cake and an order of cannoli to go so have not tried them yet but they looked amazing.

Overall, had good service through the whole visit. The one oddity, there seems to have been a slowdown/change somewhere in the chain of things. We ended up placing our drinks and appetizer order, getting our drinks/appetizers, and were partially through eating them before our server had come back to take our entree order. That was a little odd but I noticed the same situation at other tables so this just might be standard here. This extended our overall visit but we didn't mind as we were catching up with a friend at the time. Had we been more pressed for time, it could have been an issue though.

Overall, would absolutely recommend this restaurant if you are in the mood for some fantastic...

We started out at the bar while waiting for our friends to get there, we asked 40 happy hour specials and they have no clue if they were. We ordered a drink and there was just no excitement in the delivery. Our friends showed up pretty quickly so we paid our bill and went to the table. Our server was really jittery and wanted to hurry us along right after we set down not very accommodating. We ordered the warm bruschetta appetizer, she really wanted to take our entrée orders we told her we're not ready. we had to ask for bread and ask for water several times. She was not very attentive at all she said she was not supposed to be serving and had five other tables upstairs in other words she didn't have time for us. We were really waiting to order wine she didn't show up to the table until the entrees are served when we receive the wine she couldn't open the bottle and she spilled it all over the place, with every pour. My husband tried to tell her not to fill up the glasses but she just kept on going. She never came back to ask how our entrées were or we would have sent 2 out of 4 back. I forgot to mention the soups were overly overly salted I didn't even eat mine she never questioned why I sent a full bowl of soup back, she was in too big of a hurry. The reason we didn't complain is because we were there with a couple we have never had dinner with, nor did we get the opportunity because our server never ever came back and there was never a manager we were never asked how the food was. The dessert was lovely all I know it's a terrible dining experience very loud very tight terrible service, I'll never come back. Don't waste your money on this place people, and by the way we are restaurant ...