Zanti The Woodlands — Restaurant in The Woodlands

We went to Zanti for our friends birthday dinner. The atmosphere was nice. It was not all as I’ve heard raved about. The service was slow, but I think he must have been new. We ordered martini’s and were up-charged for the vodka (Tito’s), and the blue cheese olives… We weren’t told blue cheese olives were extra, but whatever. I would have still went with them but when I waited tables through college, I always let my customers know when something would be an extra cost. The drinks took a bit to come out (we were sitting at a tall table by the bar). We ordered the fried calamari as an appetizer, it was good and came out fast. We finally were approached again to order our meals and we asked about the truffle pasta. The server described the pasta then immediately told us we couldn’t order it because they were out of one of the ingredients, lol. All good. I went with the bolognese dish, with the description on the menu stating it was their “famous” sauce. The birthday girl with the seafood pasta dish, and our other friend went with the shrimp risotto. The food came out quick, but upon going to bite into the bolognese pasta, I looked at mg friends and said it tasted like canned Spaghetti-O’s sauce. It lacked flavor, therefore I added a lot of salt and pepper and asked the server for some red pepper flakes. The pasta was cooked well, but the actual sauce was not great. Especially for the price. The portion was also small. My friends seafood pasta dish was also underwhelming. The pasta was very undercooked, and unappealing. The seafood made the pasta watery and overpowered any flavor that may have been there. She couldn’t even eat the pasta, and pulled it out onto a dish next to her to only eat the seafood. My other friends shrimp risotto was good. But it also required a bit of doctoring up with salt and pepper. There was a good portion of shrimp and risotto in hers. We ordered a second round of drinks and asked for their house Chardonnay (not sure they even have one but the server said okay and came back with the wine). It was not very cold, at all. It was hard to drink. We would have told our server this, however he did not come around often. Upon receiving the bill and seeing the up-charges, we realized we spend $14 on a hot class of white wine. The server came to our table at 8:49 and said it was last call because they close at 9:00 PM (it was Sunday). We declined anymore drinks and asked him to take our dirty dishes that were piled up in front of us for way too long. We asked for a box for the shrimp risotto and our checks. He came back with the box and while my friend was putting her shrimp risotto into the box, the manager came freakishly behind her with his face way to close to hers (my other friend and I thought he knew her because he looked like he was about to hug her), and asked if he could take her empty dish, and started to put his hand on it while she was still scraping it into the box. She ended up handing it to him. He then asked how the food was and I answered “It was okay….” thinking this would be my opportunity to explain our experience. He smiled, nodded, and then walked off with the dirty dish. It was so odd!!!! Anyway, for how long we traveled to go to this restaurant, for the price and quality of food and service, we will...

Revised- Returned on the request of Humberto (GM) after our first visit wasn’t up to their standards and didn’t quite meet our expectations. As soon as we arrived we were greeted by Humberto and thanked for trying again. This visit was exceptional, from Humberto to our waiter Felipe, the chef Irving, the other GM Cody and finally the owner Santiago. We were treated with an amazing appetizer, a fried cheese ball (sorry I don’t know the names haha), an artichoke dish, a specialty pizza and finally we all shared a tomahawk steak. I have to be honest and say Italian food isn’t my favorite (I don’t like cheese) BUT this was ALL exceptional. Everyone at the table agreed that this food was absolutely delicious and we would all order all these things again. I also don’t drink but they served wine to the rest of my party and that was also amazing. Finally we were treated with the chocolate sphere for dessert, the thing that start all the controversy in the first place and it tasted the way it should. It was rich and decadent and delicious. This whole experience was absolutely second to none and I would not hesitate to make a return visit. Thanks again Humberto and Santiago for your gracious handling of my complaint and making things way over and above what was needed. We still talk about this meal and how great it was. Thank you!

Went here with my dad and brother a week ago and had a bad experience. The waiter was a young guy and he did a good job. I had the lasagna, my dad had the spaghetti bolognese and my brother had the seafood pasta. Dad and I didn’t really enjoy but my brother liked his seafood pasta. The only reason they get two stars is because my brother did like his food.

Where it really took a turn was when we ordered this chocolate sphere thing for dessert. They brought it to the table and poured the hot chocolate on it and we all tried it. All three of us didn’t like the taste, something was off and we tried it several times each. It was a sour, strange taste, not what chocolate tastes like. We informed the waiter and actually got him to taste it and his face said all we needed to see. He said “oh yes something is off here” and said he would take it to the chef. The chef also agreed that something happened to it and the taste was strange and not right.

We got the bill and the dessert was still on there and I couldn’t believe it. No offer to remove it, no visit from the manager, no changes made. At that point it was late and my brother wanted to go and I didn’t complain because I don’t really like Italian food and planned to never return anyway. I was shocked that they would serve a dessert and have it verified by two restaurant workers that it was bad and not even visit our...

This was my first time here. It was surprisingly busy for a restaurant on a Thursday. They had live music playing, which was unexpected. The performer did a fine job, and the volume was more appropriate here than in other restaurants I've been in that have tried this. Unfortunately it made my request to be seated someplace quiet more difficult to be fulfilled (I'm hard of hearing, so background noise requires everyone talking to me to talk louder so I can understand them, and also usually involves me asking people to repeat themselves. It's not a great experience for anyone).

Their patio section has accordion glass doors to close the area off when the weather is bad. During our visit they were open. The weather was well suited for it. Unfortunately the patio area was also full, including two large parties. And as you can suspect, a large group generates a lot of noise in trying to communicate with someone at the far end of the table. Not to mention the crying toddlers/infants.

Our waiter, Ricky, was understanding about my hearing and was patient when I would ask him to repeat things. Thankfully one of the large parties left before our entrees arrived, and it made conversation much easier with the other person in my party. I'm sure Ricky appreciated not having to repeat himself every other sentence as well.

The food was very good. We had gotten a truffle bread appetizer as well as the meatball appetizer. The drinks were good but a little slow getting to the table (drinks and appetizers were ordered at the same time, appetizers arrived and were with us long enough to try them, compare them, and give feedback when Ricky asked before the drinks showed up). Subsequent drink requests did show up in a more timely manner.

For entrees we had their lasagna and frutti di mare. Both were excellent. We were very pleased at the portions. I was especially pleased that my futti di mare had no "closed shell" issues. That's somewhat rare. Usually there's one or two that are discarded.

Dessert was their "Zanti Sphere", which has a really great presentation to it. It's a massive martini glass with a chocolate sphere about the size of a softball, with cake and ice cream in it. They 'break' the shell at the table with hot chocolate sauce.

I will gladly dine here again, I'll just need to ask in advance which nights are typically their slowest, and confirm there isn't...