La Famiglia — Restaurant in Reno

Overall, a nice place. Some hits and misses, but a comfortable vibe overall. We came on a Friday night at around 7:30 PM for context. The restaurant was maybe three-fourths full and fluctuated throughout the night.

Service: Service varied depending on who came by the table. When we got in, it took a while for the first person taking our order to actually get our order in. We were able to get a wine sample, which took a while to get to us as well. Another server took her place and he was a lot more attentive with water, complimentary bread, and just coming by to check on us. When he wasn't around, there were at least two other people refilling our waters or asking us if we needed anything. I actually did get the sense that the wait staff helped each other out a lot, which was refreshing to see. I think the owner stopped by to ask how the food was as well. Toward the end, another of the wait staff came by to pick up some of our plates, but I wasn't quick enough to tell him not to take away some of the plates that had some food still on them. I thought it was a bit hasty on his part to take them without asking, but they were reasonably cleaned off, so not too big a deal. Just surprising.

Value: I thought the food was amazing. I don't frequent Italian restaurants a lot, but my partner who does said the food was decent, but not the best. She said it was very good for the price point, though. I think this restaurant was on the higher side of casual or lower side of fancy (the interior was very nice, tastefully decorated with folded napkins and wine bottles, casual/relaxing music, but they also let me eat there wearing shorts and a hoodie). Prices on the website and on their in-store menu varied a bit, with the in-store menu being slightly more expensive (and most updated). We got a decently portioned house salad della casa, lamb shank special ($33), linguine vongole ($25), and a small slice of tiramisu ($9).

Food quality and impressions: -Salad: the cranberries looked like they were higher quality (homemade?) than cheap dried store cranberries and the gorgonzola was very mild. The vinaigrette added just enough acidity to whet the appetite. A very nice salad overall. -lamb shank: the lamb shank was huge and came with the bone in and over a bed of polenta. All of this was drenched in carrots and a reduced brown sauce. The meat was very easy to pull off the bone and the sauce was not too overpowering. It was a hearty dish and went well with red wine. There was nothing bad about it. -linguine vongole: absolutely delicious. I would pay $25 for it again. They were generous with the clams and the sauce was so multi-faceted: briny and clammy, but also with bright white wine flavor, and the sauce did not leave a gross impression of being overly buttery. I ended up sopping up the sauce with bread after I was done with the pasta to get more of it. I thought the pasta could have been more al dente and my partner says it could have been hotter, but I think those are preferences rather than a quality issue. I was able to get through this entire pasta without wanting to stop. -tiramisu: we got it to go, but it was both small and looked kind of sad, especially for $9. I have never had a tiramisu quite like it, though, and I liked it a lot. It definitely gave the impression of being made by a home chef (not necessarily in a bad way). There were various textures instead of being entirely creamy throughout (kind of like a tres leches, actually), and it was soaked in coffee liquer, giving it a very strong alcoholic flavor. I thought it was a good way to end the night, but maybe not for $9.

Overall, really good restaurant. If you're in the area and want nice but affordable Italian food, this is probably the place to go. Service was good overall. 4/5 might eat here again with a friend but probably...

My partner and I came to celebrate our anniversary, we were very excited to try for the first time. We are also very understanding and not picky at all, but we will not be coming back here simply because of the way we were treated. When we arrived, the hostess did not greet us and just dryly asked for our reservation and when we answered she did not say other word and walked us to our table. Sure, it was a little inhospitable but we looked past it. When we were sat out waitress, Regina, came by to ask for our drinks and told us about the specials. In all honesty, you could just tell she was being fake and really didn’t want to be there but yet again , we tried to look past it and ignored her sarcasm. Once we ordered, we waited about 30 minutes just to get the APPETIZER. The calamari was delicious, but the wait time was not okay. But, yet again, we still gave them grace and thought they might just be busy and having a hard time. However, we did not receive our dinner for ANOTHER 30 minutes , waiting for our food for about an hour. Our waitress Regina did not even check in with us out of courtesy. What struck us most bizarre though, was that whole families that came in after us were getting their food quickly and with good service. It was just us 2, with reservation and they did not even look in our direction which made us feel really disrespected as well. The only person in the whole establishment that showed us respect, courtesy and refilled our waters was an older Hispanic gentleman which we believed to be the busser. By the time our food was there, we could tell it was good food, but after going through that very long wait and complete disregard and lack of customer service, it honestly just made the food taste bad too since we weren’t able to enjoy it. After we finished, we waited another 20 minutes to get our check because our waitress Regina said “Oh I haven’t given you your check? I thought I did sorry!” Confirming even more that we were invisible to her and all other staff. In conclusion, it’s unfortunate we were treated this way. We had very high hopes to eat here, but will never be...

I very rarely post reviews unless I feel compelled to do so. Such is unequivocally the case here.

We had a 7:30 p.m. show at the Pioneer on Saturday and so made reservations for 5:45 p.m. We were seated promptly at 5:45 p.m. We did not order appetizers and our dinner did not arrive at the table until a little after 7:10 p.m. And this was only because we kept reminding them that we had a show at 7:30 p.m. Needless to say, we did not get to enjoy our dinner whatsoever as we literally had to scarf it down in order to make it to the show on time. A 5:45 p.m. seating should have provided us with ample time to enjoy our dinner, including a dessert, before the show.

Our friend is a vegetarian and ordered the mushroom saccheti. What was placed before him when our dinner finally did arrive was a baked penne with meat sauce. He had no choice but to eat it because we could not afford to wait another 1.5 hours to have our dinner served.

To make matters worse, someone spilled a white sauce on my husband's black coat. We only found out because our waitress noticed it as she walked by. She noticed it because there was a lot of sauce on his coat!

I must say that Ethan (the individual who was in charge of water for our table) was extremely pleasant. Our waitress was also pleasant.

To be fair, the cioppino and scallops were excellent. The baked penne, however, should be removed from the menu or improved upon.

It was obvious that the restaurant could not handle the capacity that evening. If we had not reminded them over and over again that we had a show at 7:30 p.m., our dinner would probably have arrived closer to 7:30 p.m. or even after.

In light of our experience, I cannot recommend this restaurant. It was truly...