Little Italy Pizzeria & Pasta — Restaurant in San Diego

First I think and most importantly is its location. Do not look in traditional downtown Little Italy. It's actually West of the 5 freeway off of Pacific Coast highway in between Pacific Coast highway and the freeway 5. Probably easiest if you take Washington Street West of the five turn right on Pacific Coast highway headed north and you're very next exit within a quarter of a mile on the right hand side coutis exit though I don't even know if there's a sign and be ready to slow down it's a very quick turn to the right and you'll see the restaurant to your right on the frontage road of Pacific Coast highway. Hey maybe follow the GPS LOL but we literally stumbled on this place. Thought it was new within a year from looking at the inside. To find out it's been there for over 20 years. This gem of a restaurant 20 years and I didn't know about it, what the hell. Homemade sauces I should have asked but I would guess the pasta's homemade. If you don't like it al dente pasta that's just a little bit stiff be sure you ask for it to be cooked a little bit more. It was barely Al dente though. I usually don't like al dante but this was different just before the edge of sauce and I actually enjoyed the texture very much. I want you to enjoy your experience here because it is well worth it. Very tasty tasty food. I leave my five stars for the 200.00 and $300 dinners LOL. you could never spend that here. Great meals start at $14.00 Nice open area atmosphere great food selection specialties look like they had a pretty good wine selection but we had soft drinks for lunch. Great portions took half of it home for another meal. I had the $16 manicotti. Two manicotti's and a half plate of incredible tasting spaghetti. My friend who knows how to eat had just the spaghetti and he couldn't finish it Take home that's two meals for him. When you look at it that way it's a $7 meal OMG what a deal comes with great garlic bread. You cannot go wrong coming here to eat. Let me say that again you cannot go wrong here to eat. Daniela was our waitress and she was just charming. Right on top of it checked in on a several times great waitress. This place is definitely not your typical Italian restaurant. A bit of a twist in the food very specialized. I'm going to guess by the texture of the onions a bit al dante itself it was made at point of order. Really nice touch. Okay thanks for reading don't forget you went almost a year without dining out and tipping so tip well let the waiters and waitresses catch up. PS I voice typing I do not edit lol. Yes I was born and raised in the God bless America good old USA let's...

Edit: I gave this place another chance, and they have definitely stepped it up. Amazing Baked Ziti and garlic bread everytime I’ve been here since, and very fast pickup time! (I’ve found that the key with this restaurant is to place a pickup order by phone directly rather than through any online app). I’ve changed my mind about this spot and really appreciate their delicious late night food and service! This has become my absolute favorite place to get pasta in all of downtown and Little Italy.

Really bad customer service. I placed an order online at 9:30 PM on a Tuesday night. I called to confirm it would be ready before I went to pick it up, and was told it would be by the time I arrived. I got there at 11:00 PM… and then I waited another 30 minutes in the restaurant before I was able to get my food and leave. Took me 2 whole hours to be able to get to eat after a long day when I didn’t feel like cooking and thought takeout would be the solution. LOL. When I got home and opened the container, I discovered that my baked ziti pasta was missing an entire ingredient - there was no ricotta cheese, which was the entire reason I ordered it. Just got noodles with tomato sauce and mozzarella. Super disappointing to have my food made incorrectly after waiting that long. I will also note that I’m pretty sure they didn’t start making my food until I arrived, despite me ordering it an hour and a half prior AND calling to check on it, & rushing to make it is probably why it was missing ingredients.

The staff at the register was terrible at customer service, did not apologize for the wait ever, and actually acted annoyed that anyone was waiting there for food we had pre-ordered. If I hadn’t already paid for it, I would have left and gotten some fast food because I was left waiting that long.

There were other customers in the restaurant who were waiting for food and were in a similar situation to mine. While I waited, I talked to a guy who told me he was working for an online food delivery service, and had been there waiting to pick up someone’s order for over an hour!

However, the food was really good the first time I ordered, I will admit. I guess this is just the kind of place you have to hope you get lucky with because of the insane inconsistency in quality. Make sure they put the ricotta on your pasta or you’ll...

This is a delayed review. I was recently asked about ordering from here again and told my group I'd order something else for them because I did not like my experience in June and would not recommend it for delivery if they wanted food in time for their lunch break.

In the past, I've ordered delivery from here for larger events and the teams love it. In June, I called the week before, asked the manager if they could fulfill an order as it was large, was for an earlier than usual delivery time - 10:30 AM. I told them they could say no if it wasn't feasible but I liked using them as they are local & the staff before was great. They agreed & I left a substantial tip ahead of time.

Day of, delivery time is about 5 minutes away & I call to check in on the order. They said since it was such a large order they would have to split it for delivery & would send the first half right then. I said that is fine that I would have appreciated that they called ahead to explain there would be a delay so we could send someone to pick up instead but it was finei f they could drop off half of the order in the next couple minutes. 20 minutes pass and our offices are less than 10 minutes away. I call again and the person answering say that its probably just arriving, I just needed to be patient. I call again 5 minutes later to ask for the delivery person's contact as drop can be a little confusing (though the restaurant confirmed when I ordered that they'd delivered before). He says he can't share the contact but will ask the drive to call me. Driver calls and says he is just leaving the restaurant with the food will be there in 10 minutes..... So literally I was lied to on the phone. My support team asked if they should drive over to pick it up but our event is already starting and we can't send someone to pick up, its too late. The driver finally arrives with half of the items, 45 minutes after the agreed time for delivery (11:15 AM) and has to go back for the other half. Final amount was dropped off at 11:30 AM... so we were definitely in proximity.

In all, a terrible experience but our teams love the pizzas. I shared my experience with other support staff on site & heard similar reviews for individual orders. Definitely will not use for large events or delivery. But would recommend if the team is going in person...