Osteria la Spiga — Restaurant in Seattle

Going into this restaurant, I sooo sooo soo wanted to like it. Walking in, I loved the decor and the atmosphere, but very quickly after that, it went downhill.

I went here for my birthday dinner with a group of friends and had the worst experience both food and service-wise.

From the beginning, the hostess did not even take us to our table, just pointed to where it should be. Everything took a long time. The majority of the night was waiting. Our reservations were at 8:15 and we didn't leave until after 11, not by choice. After taking our order, they didn't even think to take our menus. They brought the flat bread to our table, but didn't even bring olive oil. When they did bring the oil, there was only one small platter for 8 ppl. More than half the group could not reach it since we were sitting at the large round tables.

After we ordered, it took at least 30 minutes before we got our food. The food did not even come together. Half the group ordered from the tasting menu, half ordered from the regular menu. I had the Duck Ragu Pappardelle. This is my favorite type of pasta. I've had it at many other restaurants. The papardelle at La Spiga was so heavy handed and dry. Duck is normally a fatty meat, but I've never had such dry duck in my life. It tasted extra gamy. The rest of the group ordered some gnocchi off the tasting menu, the mushroom linguini also off the tasting menu. Both were disappointing. The mushroom pasta was dry and the gnocchi tasted like spaghetti-Os. They did not inform us that the tasting menu was family style. Family style would be bearable, except they brought a pasta for two, but brought no extra plates. Did they expect two men to eat off the same plate? 20 minutes into our pasta, the server brought another pasta to one of my friends. Turns out they brought him the wrong one in the first place. My friend was halfway through a bite and the server rudely took away the plate without apologizing. With the poor quality of their service, I'm wondering if they took it so they could re-serve it. What makes this even worse is, how could they bring out someone's entree 20 minutes after everyone else gets their's? This also means someone who did order that pasta was probably sitting there wondering what happened to their food. Our server asked me if I wanted a refill on my coke towards the very very end of the meal. Too bad I wasn't the one who ordered the coke, it was my friend sitting next to me. That's all fine and good, except after he did bring the coke, he brought it to me again.

All in all, this is, hands down, one of the worst places I've ever been. I wouldn't wish this restaurant on my worst enemy. I would have rather gone to Olive Garden. Please avoid this place at all costs.

One thing I will add is they must have recognized that they were failing horribly on their service that they comped two glasses of wine for us. Still...

i got the Stinco di Maiale and torta di cioccolato

the rest of the people i was with got pastas, but i was interested in trying this

first off, with the pork shank, the meat was practically falling off the bone - it was just incredibly tender you could tell the braising process was done to perfection - a lot of care was put into the slow-cooking process the meat has certainly been cooked well when all i have to do is use my fork lightly and the pork easily tears away from the rest of the structure

i also loved the flavor of the sauce on top - it didn't overpower the pork - but rather added a pretty solid overall flavor to balance out the meat the other nice thing is it helped with making sure the meat didn't get dry the tenderness of this meat is quite impressive

another thing that i found quite enjoyable was the sides this dish came with a lot of roasted potatoes - which were fantastic first, it was great that there was a lot of them to to provide another experience from just the pork, but they were also seasoned well and coated well with oil Additionally, I loved to escarole - so much so that it was gone pretty quickly. eating it with the potatoes was great initially, i wasn't sure on what the balsamic cipollini was - it seems to be an onion coated in vinegar - kinda mixed on that one

i was also pleasantly surprised by the size of the portion of the pork - it was a pretty large cut of meat, and the overall dish itself was pretty well sized it was expensive - about 32 dollars for this entree - but I do think I got a better deal than the others i was with who ordered pastas (which came in relatively small portions) for about 5 dollars less

moving on, i also ordered the flourless chocolate cake this i wasn't really a fan of first, the filling was pretty dry. it tasted mostly like crumbs and there wasn't much, if any, chocolate filling inside because of how tall the cake was, it meant that you would have couldn't really eat the cake vertically, like you would in a normal cake, which enables you to get frosting with each bite. when the cake slice is this tall and thin, you have to eat exclusively from the base at first. this also resulted in the cake toppling over a few bites in also, i'm not a big fan of the raspberry sorbetto on the cake - it didn't fit super well the vanilla creme tasted good but there really wasn't a lot of it - it was more there as a decoration

overall, i loved the pork but the cake was a bit of a...

My family took me to LA Spiga on Sunday. Great, beautiful space. We had a reservation and got right in. Our server was attentive, but not overly. Our first course was fried piadina bread served with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and eggplant with salsa verde. It was very tasty although I didn't eat the eggplant. I hate eggplant. Anyway the fat little pillows of piadina were delicate, delicious and tasty with the mozzarella and prosciutto.

Our second course was all four of the classic handmade pastas. Gnocchi pomodoro - perfect. Some idiot on a prior review said it tasted like spaghettios. That person should probably stick to Olive Garden and Bucca di Beppo. The gnocchi is handmade. The scratch sauce has had all the tomato seeds milled out, (the recipe is from the Italian proprietor's Mother!), it tastes bright and intensely of tomato tossed hot with Parmagiano melted into the sauce - just as it should be. The tagliatelle with ragu was flawless. Perfectly al dente, just enough of the rich meat ragu tossed with parmigiano and still nice and hot. The tagliatelle with truffle butter and parmigiano was perfectly al dente and tossed with truffle butter and parmigiano. Best for last - the lasagne is a masterpiece. Layers of ragu and bescamel create a magnificent combination of mouthfeel and complex flavors that combine into the best lasagne in the city.

We had a large house salad as a last course. It was perfectly dressed with a simple vinaigrette made with high end, extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Simple and perfect, like all menu items at La Spiga. They sent us a dessert sampler, as it was Father's day and we were clearly there for that reason. The Panna cotta with berries was excellent, vanilla, berries and creamy Panna cotta. The taramisu is perfect - I like it better than any other taramisu I've ever had. There was also a tasty grappa cake that my kids didn't appreciate as my wife and I did.

Run, don't walk to La Spiga. They have been doing the same thing the same way since they opened. As a veteran chef of 24 years I can tell you that you can trust that you will be very pleased with the authentic, simple fare and hospitality offered...