Oggi Italian — Restaurant in Tampa

I should have looked at the reviews prior to joining a birthday dinner party here. We were a party of 7, and our experiences matched that of the reviews already posted - very mixed.

Multiple of our salads had wilted / bad pieces of lettuce - not a huge deal, but seems to match what is being experienced in other reviews regarding freshness of the food.

One person ordered the fresh mussels, which turned out to not be fresh at all (as in, they were bad - pull them out of your mouth bad). When she kindly let them know, they told us "you're not the first person to say that tonight" as they took her plate. That alone is enough to not trust this institution to serve you food (why did they not take it off the menu for that evening?!).

There were 7 meals ordered, however, my chicken marsala was missed by the kitchen, so all other meals came out but mine. The server was kind and let me know he put a rush on the meal to the kitchen. Again, not a huge deal, these things happen, and my friends shared their dishes with me while I waited and we drank our wine. However, after the mussels issue, that same friend ordered another dish, and her second dish came out while my first dish was still not delivered. Another several minutes went by, and at this point, everyone is basically finished with their meals (and me getting two rounds of "taste-testing" everyone's dishes - including some undercooked gnocci), and my meal still had not arrived. The server came back, apologizing, and we asked to cancel the dish, or if it was started, place it to-go. We also asked for it to be comped, as it was past the point of needing to even eat the meal. He was kind again, and said he would be back to confirm he could do that. My food came out about a minute later, not in a to-go box. It was a thick, dry grilled chicken breast on top of fettucine with sauce that had clearly been sitting in the bowl longer than the chicken that was placed on top of it. This is not chicken marsala (I wish i took a photo). The description on their menu is "thinly pounded chicken" with mushrooms & creamy marsala sauce, and this dry piece of grilled chicken was least 1.5 inches thick. At this point it is comical.

All food and kitchen debacles aside, here is where this restaurant really lost me - a woman with absolutely zero personality came up to our table, hands folded and flatly said "I hear there is a problem". No introduction, no explanation, no attempt at hospitality. One person at the table stepped up and asked if she was the manager or owner, to which this person said she was the owner (makes this expereince even worse knowing that is who is running this place). My friend then explained the mussles and missed meal situation and stated that we wanted to ensure both of those items were compensated. She replied, okay we can do that, and walked away. It was awkward and unprofressional - we all felt weird - like we were in trouble or something - and all we could do was laugh.

We finished our time with espressos and dessert and enjoyed the evening on their alley / patio (very cute section of the restaurant). The bill came and the items were comped, and the waiter gave the birthday girl a gift card, which was very kind.

Overall, maybe half the meals were good, half were not (including bad seafood), some service was great, some was awful (from the owner herself), and the vibes were nice.

Unfortunately, I would not recommend this place - too much risk for a bad experience and not worth the money...

What a disappointment.

First of all, if you want to eat outside and sit in the cozy Italian looking area that they show in the pictures, you have to specifically ask for it when you make your reservation, otherwise, you get seated on the other side of the restaurant, like we did, which is regular tables in the middle of the sidewalk with people walking 3 inches away from you while you eat.

Our meal (3 people) : Small charcuterie board Shrimp/scallop scampi Rigatoni Italia Spaghetti and meatballs Total cost: $155 (with tip)

The only highlight of the whole meal was the meats on the charcuterie board, bresaola and speck, which are almost impossible to find outside of Mazzarro's. Delicious. The portions, however, were laughable; if you took off the bunch of wilted arugula and the 20 tastless water crackers on that board, there was hardly anything on it.

The scampi sauce was average. Nothing particularly great or horrible about it. Some salt and extra lemon helped it a lot. The entire dish had THREE shrimp and THREE scallops, total. For over $30, that is. The shrimp was very hard and rubbery, but the scallops were plump and nicely cooked. The pasta itself, however, was nothing short of disgusting (for all three entrées). I don't know whether the problem lies in the brand they use, where they source it, how they cook/reheat it, or something else altogether, but let me tell you, it's bad. Bland, poorly reheated and an overall off-putting pasty texture. I asked if they could make it spicy and the waiter said no, but he would bring me some hot pepper flakes. The hot pepper flakes never came.

The Rigatoni Italia sauce was not that bad, and, to their credit, the people who wrote reviews complaining about getting regular ham instead of prosciutto in that dish need to understand that that's exactly what "prosciutto cotto" is...just regular, pink ham. Don't let the word "prosciutto" fool you. Prosciutto, as we know it in America, would be called "prosciutto crudo". That having been said, I only know that because I was born and raised in Italy. It would be a lot easier for everyone if they just said "ham" lol.

The meatballs were HUGE (not in a good way), literally Godzilla size balls. The flavor of the meat was bland and they were super hard.

The entrees were luke warm and altogether a complete let down, especially for the money. They use plates with HUGEEEEEE rims (and I'm talking UFO size rims) to fool you into thinking that you're getting a bunch of food, when you're really not. The description on the menu said that all entrées came with salad and espresso, but the espresso never came. The salads were average at best.

I'm sorry, but we won't be back or recommend this...

I found this restaurant from searching for pasta in the area i was in. I have no complaints about food quality due to the fact that i rarely eat Italian food and i like to try different dishes when i dine out, so nothing to compare. I had the Chilean seabass and my companion the salmon. Service could be a lot faster and after reading a few reviews just now i see i am not alone in this thought. My real problem come in the form of being charged more than what i was supposed to be charged. After asking for our check and togo trays our server, Marilyn, offered us the complimentary expresso. My companion at the time was already getting impatient due to service being slow as previously stated and originally declined, but im not turning down free. The espressos came but not the check. Our server went missing for a while so we asked another server for our check. After looking over our check i found a charge for a canoli for $6. We had not ordered dessert. After asking our server who reappeared she was surprised we had gotten our check and said oh no thats not right i just wanted you to sample our canoli and took the wrong check away and then came back with a check with the cannoli removed. My guess is they dont offer samples so she had to order like regular from the kitchen. Thats all fine and good. Again i love free. The canoli came and again my impatient companion had already gotten up from her seat and was ready to go. So the nice presentation of the cannoli was short lived and needed to be put in a togo tray as well. I took care of dinner on my card my companion left a $10 tip. My guess is Marilyn was not pleased with the tip so added the $6 cannoli back on to the check because after checking my card balance i saw the original amount with the cannoli on it and not the revised version that i had signed for. I called to speak to a manager 2 days later and guess who came to the phone. Marilyn recognized who i was also acknowledged that my tip line was left at zero and that a $10 tip was left but said she did not know what had happened. And due to it being busy she would either call me back later that evening or in the morning. I have not heard from her and thats the reason for my review. Maybe someone will reach out to me and explain why i was charged more than i signed for and for something i was...