Papa Cibo — Restaurant in Rocky Mount

TL/DR: Go somewhere else. Public school food and Chef Boyardee are better.

As we were looking at the menus, a waitress apologized to another table for something taking longer than expected because they ran out of mozzarella and had to go buy more. That should’ve been a sign to leave.

They had cocktails, wine, and beer on the menu. I ordered a beer and the waitress said they didn’t have any alcohol at that time. I’m not sure if she was confused, but I saw bottles of wine (which contains alcohol…) in the wine fridge at the bar. A restaurant with a bar that doesn’t have any alcohol should have been a sign to leave. Not because alcohol, but it’s becoming obvious they don’t have their act together.

We ordered a shaved steak sub with fries, spaghetti with meat sauce, and ravioli with meat sauce.

While we were waiting for the food, the waitress brought a margherita pizza to another table and apologized to the customers because it was missing the basil. An Italian restaurant selling margherita pizzas without basil should have been a sign to leave. Not because I wanted basil, but because they would take an order for, produce, and serve a product that was missing a key ingredient.

The waitress told the customers that they took the pizza off the bill, but the customers ended up sending it back to the kitchen anyway because it was undercooked.

Our food arrived fairly quickly and it looked pretty good.

The sub’s bread was nicely toasted on the outside while soft and chewy on the inside. It was the only good part. I ordered the sub with jalapeños. I didn’t find any jalapeños, but it did have some jalapeño flavor as if they’d poured some pickled jalapeño juice onto the meat. Maybe they ran out of jalapeños too and improvised by using the juices from the jar.

The “shaved steak” would be better described as cube steak nuggets. Maybe they shaved it with an axe because the meat ranged from 1/8-1/4” thick. It was chewy and had a weird texture on the outside as if it’d been dusted with flour first the way many restaurants will dust chicken before sautéing it. I don’t know if that was the case, or if the cheese had given it a weird texture. There wasn’t really enough cheese, which is fine by me, but it was definitely less than what anyone would expect on a cheesesteak. The steak was extremely salty and had an odd flavor. I could only think of it as tasting like pan drippings that have almost burnt. I opened up the second half of my sub before starting to eat it and found that I was right. There were literal chips of junk almost as big as the pieces of beef. It looked like they hadn’t scraped off their griddle since they opened for business, melted some cheese on top of it, then pried up the cheesy dripping chips and put it in my sub.

The fries were undercooked. That’s ok because I like soggy fries, but most people don’t. They were also too salty.

The meat sauce on the spaghetti and ravioli was pretty horrible. It was too salty, overly tart/acidic, and otherwise lacking in other flavors. It needed some sugar to balance out the acidity. The meat was extremely fine and had the texture of potted meat. The combination of the sauce and overcooked spaghetti noodles brought back memories of spaghetti day in elementary school…except the meat in school spaghetti actually felt and tasted like meat.

The ravioli was just plain not good. The dough was too thin imo and the texture just wasn’t right. It felt like the ravioli had been cooked then sat out for a while before being reheated, sauced, and served. My wife said the toast that came with it felt stale.

Anyway, the food was just edible except the dripping chips in the shaved steak sub. Like many restaurants in Rocky Mount, I don’t expect them to be open very long unless something...

We went for the first time tonight (Tuesday night) and there were not many patrons in the restaurant. We waited for a couple of minutes, one of the cooks got the attention of a server to seat us. She was friendly and welcoming.

We ordered the featured Cab wine (didn't get that bottle) but the house wine was good. At the end of the night we had to question the charge as we were charged more than the name brand for the house wine. It was corrected!

Ordered Shaved Steak sandwich & Chicken Margherita...we were not overall impressed. Sandwich: great flavor and very meaty if inconsistently seasoned...the fries were cold and unsalted. Chicken Margherita: pasta was unseasoned, sauce was sweet, chicken was cooked fine but not seasoned, no basil (was listed on the menu) and the tomato was not a Roma but a regular slicing tomato (bland and not a Roma as I was expecting). I didn't eat the dish, although the mozzerella on top was excellent! But the bread...y'all I needed to take a picture. It was not toasted, not buttered/salted...nothing. It was a cold half end of a baguette. Server & manager said that this has been addressed with the owner (bread) but no real changes made. We didn't want food comped, just wanted the constructive criticism to help move the new restaurant in a good direction.

Chef made me something that he chose: Chicken & Broccolini Alfredo (still had the same type of bread) and it was great! It was flavorful, buttery, creamy. the broccolini was steamed just right, and it was really enjoyable! This should be a menu item, not a "make your own", and was better than the featured menu item I ordered.

Flavor matters and for us it wasn't there with our original orders tonight. Staff definitely helped address the errors and were receptive to the feedback, hopefully the chef (and owner) will make changes to make it a more enjoyable dining experience.

Not totally sure we will go back but maybe in a few months. Very clean and welcoming atmosphere.. They are still getting things settled and many menu items aren't...

Here is the real deal! I am a Pizza critic. I have been a pizza lover/critic having tried pizza from all over the world. Some of the best pizza in the United States come from Nee York and Atlanta. Well I’m here to tell you the new Italian Restaurant “Papa Cibo” on Benvenue Road, Rocky Mount has hands down the BEST pizza I’ve tasted in a long time. They are among the greats such as Verasanos in ATL. and Blue Moon in Marietta, and Serpico’s in New York. Simply put it’s so good your “tongue will slap you in the brains.” I highly recommend you order a large pie and join the parade. Shoe

Well, this is what I wrote about a little more than a month ago. Here we are December 3rd, 2023 and I must say wow- the food and service at “PAPA CIBO’S” in Rocky Mount is absolutely the BEST PIZZA and CHICKEN PARM in several counties. The care put into the details of each dish and customers visit by the owner George and his staff is exactly what you want when you decide to go out for a good time. The pizza has a wonderfully unique cracker crunch to the crust that tastes amazing and separates them from all the rest. The tomato sauce used is rich, full, thick, and very good, then the pie is covered with a generous amount of cheese and toppings that cause you to salivate prior to your first bite. My absolute favorite place to enjoy my Italian needs is at PAPA CIBO’S at the bar. The experience is absolutely what you’re looking for when you want to enjoy the finer things in life. I ask you to please support your local business, especially when they genuinely do their best to REALLY take care of their customer and seek to know their customers and their basic needs. “THE TEAM REALLY CARES @ PAPA CIBO’S” Enjoy!!! SHOE and...