Mimi Forno Italiano — Restaurant in Phoenix

Gemstone of Laveen no more!

It is very rare when I downgrade a 5 star rating to 3, so it pained me when my latest visit to Mimi Forno Italiano on 10/17/2023 was a disappointment. I will tell you why, it was the food quality it is now extremely AVERAGE and that is me being overly nice. The place was also pretty empty, not like before when there would be a line out the door because the place was jam packed (even during covid, that's how amazing this place used to be). I cannot recommend this place anymore and the probability chance of me returning in the next 2 years is less than 1%.

I went with my mother and spent over $100, I ordered 2 lasagna's, a ravioli dish and a calzone. The review for each is as follows:

I started with the ravioli, once I spoke that you would get transported to the heavens, this time all I could notice was how thick the noodles were and how that overpowered the taste profile of the dish. The thickness of the noodles was the only thing I could focus on, but I was able to discern nothing but the noodle thickness seemed to be the difference between the last time I tried the dish and today.

The lasagna, this was another casualty of those wretched thick noodles. The lasagna once used to be a delicately constructed tower of ultimate deliciousness. Now the lasagna is double layered with these thick noodles and all you can taste is pasta, only pasta. Not the meat sauce, not the cheese, not anything else. Just noodles! It looked delicious, but the taste was far from that.

Finally the calzone, I personally did not eat this dish. My mom had it made to order so they scored some points on that one. However, she admitted to me as I dropped her off that the center of the calzone was lukewarm not hot. It left me utterly disappointed that they struck out on all three dishes.

The service was excellent, the ambiance was still pretty good, but the food no longer lives up to the high standard this place has setup for itself. This would explain why its now calm and semi-empty.

As I was leaving I heard the table next to us ask the waitress if they changed the chef. In my head I knew that any other Mimi Forno diehard will know something has changed and not in a good way.

My suggestion to anyone reading this is to pass on this one. It's truly a shadow of its former self. If thick noodles that overpower your dish at a high price tag is acceptable, sure dine here. Otherwise I suggest other establishments that earn your dining budget.

A note to the management: Fix the bloody noodles!!! Your establishment set the bar high with melt in your mouth delicate paper thin noodles that made your food taste robust on the flavor palette. These thick noodles are sacrilegious to the standard Mimi Forno Italiano used to have.

Here's hoping to if I ever come back I encounter the food quality of the Mimi Forno Italiano I once knew.

You can find my original 5-star review below (I never delete my reviews, so you know what changed): Previous 5 star review: I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! Mimi's food is delicious, one bite and you get sent to a place where there are puffy clouds and liquid joy being served in a martini glass. Their food is always delicious, fresh and goes above and beyond. The service is always great as well! You are tended and cared for by the wait staff but you can feel that when you are at Mimi's you are treated...

Mimi Forno! An Italian hidden gem! Here's my 2 cents. Whenever I go to a restaurant especially if it's something like MiMi Forno, I do a little homework first, and I did. This place is a cool find. It's in a Shopping Center in the middle of nowhere on Baseline and 35th Avenue, beautiful mountain views. It deserves its own parking lot! Heck, TBone has their own....JS! This owner, from Italy, started this restaurant after he started his farm, which is also in South Mountain. The farm has 300 olive trees and he makes his own olive oil. He says he spices it up. I asked for a bottle of it at the table, just so I could try it. It's really good, it's not spicy like they said. I kind of shook the bottle up to stir up the spices so I could try to see if it was spicy, because I really like spice, it wasn't. Now for the pizza. This pizza oven is copper, it's beautiful, it's from Napoli. My mother and the lady that I went with have been to Italy a dozen times. They told me that this was the best pizza they've ever had in the United States. It really was good. We had two 12-inch pizzas. There were three pieces left between the three of us so if you go there, keep this in mind. We had the Salsiccia, and the cappricciosa. Yum! The olives on the cappricciosa were a nice touch. They make their own gnocchi and they make their own spinach ricotta ravioli and pappardelle, we didn't have that, but we will next time. Their wine list is exceptional. My mother had a glass of Chianti and loved it. During Happy hour, it's $4 a glass, by the way, which is Monday through Friday. I asked the chef, who is from Italy and barely speaks English, because when doing my research on the place, I discovered that the dough is a 75% hydration ratio, so I asked him how they come about that. I can't exactly repeat it but it is fascinating science and the guy does know what he's doing. Save room for dessert, because the cannolis were delicious! If you order them, you get three little cannolis. We also had the tiramisu, scrumptious, creamy, perfect. They have a three dessert special for $22 and it's worth every penny. There were three of us. We loved it and you will too. We will be going back...

Long time customer. If I had rated this when my family first started going there, it would have easily been a 4 or 5...solid 4.5. But over time I feel the owners have gotten extremely greedy. The food is excellent. The staff are all wonderful. The problem is they constantly keep trying to do things to get more money out of us. 1st they changed the happy hour from 3-6 to 2-4. Nobody gets out of work at 2. Evidently that hurt their dollars. Then they changed it again, not long after, to 3-5 (notice we lost an hour from the original) but increased the price on things. Today I asked for a receipt to see what the price of a weekend special was. I haven't asked for a receipt in maybe a month. When I got the receipt, I noticed a 3% surcharge for using a credit card. When I said something about it, the bartender (I usually sit at the bar) said "oh well we have a sign somewhere". It took a minute to figure out where, but, when finally located, the sign is like a 6" by 4" black piece of paper with white type that has one corner inserted behind another posting on the wall behind the bar. I couldn't even read it. There is no way anybody else, not sitting at the bar, could read it. I said "I can't even read that". Bartender pointed at a manager. I said "in the future I will just tip less". Couple next to me heard all this and said "I guess it's time to just use cash". Tips are not a legal requirement. They were meant to reward extremely good service, so to anyone that will complain about my tip comment "tell your boss to pay you more...it's not my responsibility". This restaurant has had a lot of turnover in good employees since they started making these changes, and I know for a fact some of them left because of this. It's a good restaurant, and they even recently opened another on the other side of town (different name unfortunately...probably to avoid downfall from something like this), but I really do feel the owners are trying to nickel and dime people. I have decided to frequent this place less often and it will likely affect my tipping habit which is easily a solid 20% if you don't make...