Tutti Pazzi Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Sanibel

Choose Your Booth Wisely

The FussBudget tour of Sanibel Restaurants continued tonight, on Thursday 4/28/22. We opted for Italian tonight after reading some encouraging reviews of Tutti's. We had a 6 pm reservation, arrived to a nice looking building with plenty of parking. The restaurant is on the 2nd level, and has a long ramp for those who might otherwise want an elevator. We took the steps. Things did not go as well as we hoped after this point.

We were "faux greeted" by Nancy as we approached the hostess station, and I say "faux" due to a complete lack of happiness or smile, more of a sense of being exceptionally bothered by our mere presence. Maybe she was having a bad night. Note to owner: Nancy needs some serious hospitality training, and STAT.

Moving on, we were struck by the conflicting (schizophrenic?) identity of the place. Is it a restaurant? Is it a Sports Bar? Apparently it is trying to be both, which ends up doing neither justice. But I know you want to find out about the booth choice challenge, which amounts to a stunning lack of shades on the windows where shades should be found, but aren't.

Mrs. FussBudget found out about 10 minutes after we were seated on the not Sports Bar side of the place that she was under assault by the sun in full blown attack mode in her side of the booth. In spite of my repeated pleadings, she flat out refused to switch with me, so she wore sunglasses for the rest of her dinner and endured the effect of an overheated sun lamp on her shoulders. No other booths were available, and many other unfortunate diners also had the exact same problem. So bring your navigation sextant and sun charts along to aid with booth selection if you want to avoid this issue. Leanna (the owner) made a brief but harried appearance at our table to explain shades would be on her shopping list sometime soon. No questions such as "how is your meal?"...Seems she has many distractions to attend. We would see both Leanna and Nancy again as we departed after our meal, but unsuprisingly neither thanked us for our business or even seemed to notice as we exited past the hostess station. The vibe here is frenzied, distracted, disorganized. You can sense it almost immediately on arrival. Nicole was our server, who, although pleasant enough can also benefit greatly from server training (i.e., ask your diners if they would like a second martini or glass of wine with dinner, offer fresh ground cheese, etc.etc.) it is after all an Italian restaurant, I think. Or maybe it's a Sports Bar. I digress.

The food? Excellent. Complete kudos to the chef! Calamari appetizer was perfect, italian bread dinner rolls with butter & olives: again perfect. Mrs. FussBudget had the Mista Insalata, and I opted for the Cesare salad. Both excellent, crisp, cold, & perfect. Entree for me was the parpadelle with short ribs, and Mrs. had chicken marsala. Each was cooked and prepared to perfection. The chef is a professional and well qualified. All in before tax and tip we were at $95, includes one Tito's martini (gasp! They CHARGED for extra olives! This is a major FussBudget No No), appy, and 2 Ala Carte salads + 2 entrees. They missed an upsell for the Mrs. who would have ordered a glass of wine with dinner if asked. But alas, she was not asked. So.

The saving grace was the food, which is 5 star all the way, Service? If you factor in the first impression of Mrs. Crankypants at the hostess stand it ranks 2 stars or probably less. What do they say about first impressions? I forget. Servers need training (I could even tell OTHER servers were not confident, and generally discombobulated). This is a sign of much needed training. There is hope for Tutti's, as long as the Chef sticks around. We will return again next year to see if improvement occurs. Keeping...

Tutti Pazzi

Meal: Dinner

Check-in process: A little annoying. 20% capacity and was a strategic decision to get us seated. Rating: 2.5

Table-Side Service: Fast and friendly. Waitress does need more training on the food selections. Rating: 3.5

Ambience: Is it a pizza dive? bar? upscale restaurant? decor and upgrades seem to be in process. Does not really appeal to kids/families. Rating: 3

Dish Appetizer: Asiago Gnocchi Poppers Food Quality: 3.5 Lightly battered, soft and smooth. The marinara is not appealing to some.

Food Quantity: 3.5 Adequate.

Complimentary Bread: Food Quality: 1 Very hard on the outside. Hard to tear. Doesn't compliment oils and parmesan very well. Food Quantity: 3.5 Adequate

Dish: Salsiccia Giambotta Food Quality: 4.5 Cooked to perfection. Served with a perfect quantity of sausage. Sausage was flavorful. Chardonnay sauce exceeded expectations. Food Quantity: 3.5 A larger portion of veggies would make this perfect.

Dish: Spaghetti with Meatballs and Marinara Food Quality: 3 Meatballs seemed more like breadballs. Marinara is like RAO's. Very natural, not much tang. Not appealing to kids. Food Quantity: 4 Good amount

Dessert: N/A Dessert Rating:

Drink Selection: Wine Rating: 4.5 Pleased

Overall Rating 3.3

Thoughts: Some dishes are excellent, and I mean really good. However some of the main dishes are just average. The menu is hard to read for some age groups. Pizza and steak would be my next tries. Unfortunately, I think this concept misses the mark on target audience - families on vacation. My kiddos rating 2.5, wouldn't come back; which makes us unlikely to revisit...

My husband and I ate here the very last night of our vacation. Matzalluna the prior place was one of our family favorites. I've never given this bad of a review but this one across the board. I am late doing this as we were there in May but my doctors bills from food poisoning are rolling in and reminded me of it. Out of the entire 9 days of vacation my husband and I ate at many different places but always ordered different food as we have different tastes. This night however we both orders chicken alfredo , he added shrimp. Our male server was beyond annoying and had lot of signs of being high on pain pills. Then halfway into our dinner on a Saturday night in what still appears as a white table cloth restaurant karaoke was started up. To say this was the most bipolar restaurant experience I've ever had, and definitely won't subject myself to again. Back to the food poisoning...We both ate our chicken alfredo went back to the condo to pack for our drive back to MO the next day. We headed out early morning and stopped about the halfway point late Sunday night in Prattville AL. The vomiting started with my husband in the early hours of the night. Then I started, and mine was severe enough I had to go to the ER. After 3 round of medication and tests I was admitted for 3 days. To say I will never eat here ever again for our family visits is by far an...