The Sicilian Butcher — Restaurant in Phoenix

D grade Sadly disappointing. Meatball sandwich was hugely disappointing. Not a loaf of soft on the inside and flaky outside Italian bread. Nor was there a healthy dose of cosmic red marinara. Instead it was an oddly soggy yet at the same time, dry mess of an attempt at Italian fry bread, with a schmear of something like red sauce, which of course there is no such thing as Italian fry bread because it would suck and indeed it did suck. This is one of those instances where someone is trying too hard to be clever or creative and it fails. Utterly.

Imagine an overly thick pita bread and top it with some watery ketchup. That's my opinion of the base of the sandwich, which of course means everything else can't survive. I make a point of asking if there's cheese and they say yes. So I crack the lid expecting to see some melted mozz or even better, some sharp provolone. What do I get? Well, to this day I'm still not sure. Somewhere amongst the soggy fry bread type base and ketchup like schmear of red sauce, I spy some melted white stuff but just barely. Not enough to actually tell what type of cheese or to impart enough flavor to tell what type of cheese. So I'm unsure if there actually was any cheese on it. Now I'm hungry and disappointed because you don't order a meatball sub unless you're hungry and hoping, ne expecting, copious quantities of both melted cheese and marinara. But alas, it was not meant to be. It did have meatballs, which were good. Hence a few stars for the food but let's be real here, the place is built on meatballs, it's their primary protein so the baseline I expect is a decent meatball. It was decent as it should or must be, but the complete lack of generosity of marinara is like walking outside to get the paper without any pants on. No one wants to see that so don't bother.

And then the very thing that makes or breaks an Italian meal at it's core, the bread, doesn't even resemble bread at all in my opinion, at least in the Italian loaf sense. So what could have easily been average bread with lots of sauce and cheese and good meatballs, so good enough, was left to one's imagination. I get the sandwich home and literally take out some sourdough, a jar of store pasta sauce, some identifiable cheese from the fridge and Frankenstein a meatball sandwich out of an expensive meatball sandwich. Mind you, this meal was not cheap, with tax and tip well North of a tenner and I think it might have hit the 20 range just for the sandwhich component so having to perform food surgery to get it to baseline edible status for it's category left me displeased. Cannot recommend.

Their other food can be decent, the pick your sauce, base and meatball is a decent meal, albeit in my experience always go way too light on the sauce. Some options are also very salty for my taste. The gnocchi is decent, again, they skimp on the sauce but the gnocchi itself are decent. However, an order of the gnocchi and meatball, a meatball sandwich and a couple of deserts set us back over $50 bucks with tip for take out, which was nowhere near worth the meal.

The saving grace for this place isn't even the meatballs, those are fine and they absolutely should be, they really should be better than fine but fine is a passing grade. The thing here that is worth the trip and money in my opinion, is the deserts. They make good and perhaps a great dessert. Maybe skip this place for a meal and just swing by and get some take out desert. That will save you money and disappointment. If you do randomly crave a meatball than yes, this is a good place to get a meatball, by itself, take it home and sauce it up yourself.

I'm disappointed I'm disappointed if you get what i mean. I wanted to love this sandwich and have a go to place for it but sadly it just ain't. Maybe if they switch to a traditional type bread and get allot more generous with their cheese and sauce it can get a passing grade but for now, it's a...

The entire experience was disappointing. Let’s walk through it -

Made reservations for 6 people for 730 pm, seated by 745. Hiccups included being directed to a table that didn’t have enough seats and then relocated to a booth where we were elbow to elbow. Throughout the restaurant, Table / chair placement did not allow for wheelchair access without moving the person, their seat, and the table itself.

We sat. Our server arrived about 10 minutes later asking us if we wanted water. Menus were distributed.

Water arrives about 10 minutes later. This is the ONLY water we’ll get for the entire evening. The table orders 2 appetizers and drinks.

Drinks and apps came out in a reasonable time, no complaints there.

The meatball Ferris wheel debacle. The contraption is not steady, sturdy, or well designed. Removed one ‘seat’ and it listed to the starboard bow… RIP the meatball that rolled onto the floor. Our server SEES this happen and walked away. We flagged her down about 6 minutes later asking for a towel to clean the table with. Queue eye rolls that rivaled the escaping treato.

There was no offer to replace the run-away scalliwag.

Here’s where it gets spicy. 35 minutes later, our server is back from outer space. Takes our order. Four of us are sharing a meal with someone else. We specify this.

The manager comes by 5 minutes later and asks us how our meal was. Deadpanned We say - couldn’t tell you. We haven’t had it. He said he’ll check on it and be back.

The jeopardy theme song plays on repeat.

Our food arrives 15 mins later. An hour and 10 mins after we arrived….

No extra plates are brought. Even if they had been - The app plates and serving dishes are stacked in the middle. Drinks are precariously perched in nooks and crannies.

Oh look! We only have silverware for 5. We wait for the next sighting of big foot.

The food? Mid. Mid to bottom. Everything was room temp. Things that were supposed to be hot, were not. The pasta dishes were undercooked and under sauced. The short ribs were 79% gristle. Polenta was chunky. Ceasar salad had brown, wilted lettuce.

At this point, we gave up. All liquids had been consumed. It was a dry table. We asked for the check.

Our table is finally cleared of 6 app plates, 4 serving plates, two serving bowls, and the Ferris wheel.

I pick up my wine glass to move it so I can sign my tab. It explodes…in my hand.

The server, our server. Watches. Walks away.

We use table napkins to collect as much glass as possible.

We have to flag them down again…to get help with the glass shards. Eyes roll again.

I leave. We leave. Everyone leaves and shakes the glass onto the floor as we walk out.

For all the pomp and circumstance, this was a terrible experience. Would not recommend, definitely...

Based on rave reviews, we chose to check out the Sicilian Butcher for a late lunch. There were at least three servers and a bar tender working while we were there and only two other tables seated as well as a couple at the bar. We had 7 in our group, two of them elementary aged children. Our experience was that the service was lacking and the food did not particularly wow us.

My husband and I didn't want anything too heavy so we chose to each get a chopped salad and to share the meatball ferris wheel. We also specially asked for all of our food to come out at the same time as the rest of the group.

First, we were brought our salads about five minutes before everyone else's. The waitress dropped the salads, said "everything will be out in just a few minutes" and then rushed away without giving us an opportunity to respond.

Upon looking at the salads, we noticed that we didn't see any salami although the menu description included salami in the salad. I even used my fork to dig around both salads to make sure it wasn't just buried underneath or chopped really, really small.

When we couldn't locate our server, we flagged down the server working the bar and asked her about it. She apologized and said she would get it fixed. A few minutes later, our server brought us the same salads back with one inch cubes of salami and cheese on it. Perfect. Except she then said "I went ahead and added MORE salami and cheese to your salads. Is that better?"

First of all, I don't do passive aggressive. Especially in service. Second of all, everyone makes mistakes. I was a server for almost ten years and I am very gracious towards servers and kitchen staff making mistakes. It happens. No big deal. Own it, fix it and move on. But indicating that I somehow missed large chunks of meat and cheese in a salad of shredded lettuce? No dice.

So service gets a D- for the lack of integrity and the inability to honor the simple request of bringing all the food out together. The meatballs were also stone cold when they came out and I've honestly had better meatballs at Costco's sample stations.

My 8-year-old was also disappointed with the scant third of a cup of spaghetti that he got with his kids spaghetti plate but I reminded him that he needs to make sure to ask about portion sizes at restaurants as all places don't serve over sized portions. I don't have an issue with this just want to make sure that anyone ordering kids' meals are aware that it IS a smaller portion.

Everyone else enjoyed their food. They got a pizza, Chicken Parmesan and some sort of truffle pasta. We also ended up getting gelato, which we really enjoyed.

Overall I might be willing to try it again one day, but it wouldn't be my...