Gigi's Italian Restaurants — Restaurant in Saint Pete Beach

This place was recommended to my wife and I by a St Pete cop we met a few days before who was working a detail by the new pier. He told us that it was one of the best Italian restaurants in St Pete. We are from the Boston area and we know great/good and bad Italian food. Since moving to Pinellas County 7 years ago, we have found one Italian restaurant that could compete with the North End of Boston or a lot of NY and NJ Italian restaurants. Sorry for my long opening statement, so now the review. This was by far the worst Italian restaurant we have eaten at since moving to Pinellas County 7 years ago. 1st, the restaurant needs some serious work, it isn't comfortable, clean or quaint. Try playing some Sinatra, Dean Martin or actual Italian music not easy listening classics. 2nd, my wife asked the waitress who makes their house wine, her answer, California! She ordered a glass of house merlot, it was a very poor quality wine. She drank it w/o complaining to the waitress, after all she can only serve what the owners purchase. Her 2nd glass was the house chianti, that was worse. We did inform the waitress and she replaced it with a glass of the better chianti which was ok.

I ordered veal parm w/penne aglio olio and my wife ordered eggplant parm on linguini. My veal was only partially breaded due to one end of it being curled up into a roll, the breading was barely fried and it was difficult to cut with a steak knife, it was tough to eat. The sauce tasted very sweet and like something that came already prepared, like it was a commercial jar sauce. My penne was luke warm, olive oil filling the bottom of the bowl and a few table spoons of chopped garlic from a jar covering the top of the pasta. Aglio olio is supposed to be fresh sliced/chopped garlic sauteed in olive oil, a little red pepper flakes with the pasta finished in it. What I received tasted horrible and was inedible. My wife received a house salad (blue cheese salad dressing) with her meal which was just ok. Her eggplant parm was at least edible, but her linguini barely had any sauce and it was the same lousy sauce. The best thing we received was the garlic bread that came with the meal and that was not memorable either. Now I am a big eater, I love to eat good food at good restaurants and I will almost always eat everything I order, even if it kills me. I hate leftovers, so I never have any. This was one of the few times that I barely ate half my meal. My wife always has part of her meal remaining and almost always takes it home to eat the next day or so. Not this meal. She didn't want hers or my uneaten meal to take home. I have to say that it was the worst Italian restaurant meal we've had, a total waste of our time and $70. Whoever is creating/preparing the meals in the kitchen has no training as to how to cook homemade Italian food. The waitress was mostly pleasant and she was attentive, so that is why I can justify at least one star. If you enjoy good food, especially good Italian food, then avoid this place. Find an Olive Garden, you'll have a...

I am in the service industry myself. And I understand everyone has good days and bad days. My family ate here just this past Wednesday night. Whole entire experience was absolutely horrible. From the second we walked into the door. There were 3 host just standing at the podium looking at us. With no expression on their face. Finally 1 of them asked how many. We requested a table closer to the back instead of the table smack dab in the middle of the restaurant where everyone that came in and out of the kitchen and front door passed. One of the women said she couldn't give us anything else out of the way because those tables were for a big party they were expecting . Meanwhile, 20 minutes later the same women who said those tables were being reserved was filing her nails at that table? Then I have two small children. My youngest was sitting with my dad. My dad noticed the glass covering over the tables (on the side my son was right in front of) was broken and sharp too. We pointed it out to one of the waiters. Her response was "ugh, here just put a napkin". So we actually had to rotate the glass ourself while in the middle of eating because apparently it was no big deal to any of them. Then to top all this off. There was a very ALIVE bug in my salad. I couldn't find our waitress so we grabbed whoever was around to let them know what was going on. The girl we pointed it out to looked like she was high off her a** and kept questioning me like "where??" "I still don't see it" "where is it??" I finally told her well if you'd come to where I'm sitting you could see it instead of trying to peak through every glass on the damn table. She finally sees it and her response was "o. Sorry?" "There's nothing we can really do". Me and my family thought we were on kandid camera at this point. So she's just standing there looking at us and we finally say "forget it, don't even worry about it" just so she'd go away with the stuck on stupid look on her face. She walks away from the table then comes back like "um, do should I take it off the table?" I tried not to laugh in her face and blow my lid at the same time. The. My dad did finally say something about the situation once we were leaving just on principal. Literally no one ever came over and addressed it right away or even moments later . I think she finally said "sorry about that" when she brought us boxes and the check. She apologized and took down our info and number and said the manager was at one of the other locations but ensured us we would here something the following day. It's not Saturday afternoon. Pretty sure we still haven't heard anything. One of the worst experiences I've encountered in my life at a restaurant. I wouldn't suggest this place ever to anyone or any of their other...

Came to get a nice dinner (that was the plan) and left upset and hungry.

Got to the restaurant around 8 pm and ordered around 8:15. A gentleman came after us around 8:30 by himself for dinner.

I ordered the NY strip (medium) and repeated to the waitress who was serving my fiancé and I because she stated “medium rare or medium well?” I stated “just medium”. Also ordered a couple of side salads to go with mine and fiancé’s entrees.

When I arrived there were 3 others tables around me who were finishing their dinners and finishing their evenings. It’s about 8:50 now, and I still haven’t received the side salads we ordered to start before our meals. The gentleman whom showed after us (around 8:30 stated above) received his steak meal before myself and fiancé got any of ours.

Giving benefit of the doubt to my waitress, I asked her if we could get our salads. She looked at her “notepad” slightly confused as if we didn’t order salads...moments later she brings us our salads.

Another 10 mins pass and finally received our entrees. My steak was fairly rare. Getting slightly frustrated now. My waitress asked if I wanted it to be taken back and I said no at first (I’ve heard horror stories when sending food back to the chef). After seeing how rare the steak was, I decided to ask her to go ahead and take it back because I asked for a medium steak. She takes the steak back and our table happens to sit behind the kitchen door in the corner, I hear the chef or cook in the back yell “WTF THEY SAID THEY WANTED MEDIUM RARE”. At that point that got me in a bad mood because I did not order medium rare, I ordered medium. Even if it was incorrect, fix the order per the customer (this is why I never send food back because the chef gets mad and who knows what could happen). The waitress brings the steak out with the chef and brought it out as if it was just microwaved. Steak looked dry and I just asked for my tab and wanted to leave due to my frustration.

Anywho, I think what happened was my order was mistakenly given to the gentleman who came in after us, which don’t really know why or how that happens.

I’ve had great and bad experiences, but this may be one of the worst I’ve had. I didn’t really get to experience much of the food, but if you’ve want decent service, go to chik...