John Mineo's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Town and Country

Went there a month ago to celebrate our birthdays thinking it was a special place as remembered from many years ago............. now i know why we hadn't been there in so long. first they screwed up our reservation and when we arrived did take us immediately and put us at a very small table in the corner of the restaurant which, at least, was nice and quiet. the waiter greeted us then returned about 10 minutes later. we ordered and expensive bottle of wine at that time. a few minutes later the busser filled up our water glasses. about 20 minutes later when we were ready to walk out the waiter brought us our wine. we wanted to let it breath so we ordered cocktails and an appetizer. the waiter brought our drinks and asked if we wanted to order dinner. my wife ordered the shrimp scampi and based on the waiter's recommendation i ordered the pasta with lobster in a "lobster cream sauce".

we waited another while as many tables around us were being served and our waiter came by and apologized for not paying much attention to us and complimented us on our patients. moments later i stopped him and asked if our appetizer would be out since were getting hungry. he quickly turned and went into the kitchen and returned to say our dinner was coming out and they would comp our desert for missing the app. i honestly was hoping to see how they were going to find a spot to set the app down on our table anyway.

the dinner was no better than the rest of the night. my wife's scampi had some kind of risotto type that the shrimp were around. would normally expect an Italian restaurant would serve some pasta with that dish. the pasta and lobster was brutal. lobster was chewy and the "cream sauce" was some watered down flavorless milky substance.

to say we didn't get our money's worth is an understatement. the maitre d spent a lot of time smoozing with the regulars and never bothered to stop by our table. needless to say we wouldn't go back if they gave us a free meal.

i gave it one star for the drinks....

Would NOT recommend. Don't waste your money! We had a reservation last night at 8pm. We walked in the door at 7:45. The hostess informed us that she was just seating the 7pm reservations at that time so their would be a wait. We weren't seated until 8:25pm! Why have reservations if you aren't going to have the table ready? When we were finally seated, the waiter was not attentive and was rather rude. He did not take his time to explain anything and we noticed her barely paid any attention to any of his tables. The website calls this an authentic Italian restaurant but they serve butter with the bread and not oil? We ordered calamari for an appetizer. We ate a couple pieces and had to send it back because it was literally cold to the touch. They brought out a new one which was warm but it still took a rather long time to receive it. When we finally got our entrees, we were not impressed. Our food sat on the cart infront of our table for over 5 minutes while people walked by before the waiter heated it and served it to us. Someone could have coughed or sneezed on it without him knowing since it was unattended. Glad we were able to watch it for ourselves. I ordered Linguine and Clams with white wine sauce. I could not taste anything at all but the red pepper flakes on it. The pasta did not seem homemade like they claim. So disappointing. My husband ordered the Rack of lamb. They must have taken those from the smallest lamb they could find. He is Mediterranean and was definitely not impressed. The lamb was covered in a very sweet sauce so the meat couldn't even be tasted over the sweetness. We were not even offered dessert. That's probably for the best though as our service and food was so bad and the table next to us ordered dessert and coffee and were served the wrong things. Everything was so slow that we didn't end up walking out of the door until after 10pm. The atmosphere is dated. The service and service are not...

Had dinner there Friday evening, December 3rd with my wife and two other couples. My own experience was very poor though I believe others fared better. At the outset two couples ordered cocktails. I ordered a bottle of wine. The cocktails came but no wine….and it was a good 20 minutes when it did. And it wasn’t what I ordered. The waiter (very, very young) insisted it was what I ordered. I had to ask him to retrieve the wine list and pointed out to him the difference. He then went off somewhere and returned with a surly wine steward (sommelier?). He told me “Of course it’s not the same because we don’t have it in stock”. Like it’s my fault. He then produced another of the same varietal which was fine. Over 30 minutes had now gone by. I wasn’t all that hungry so decided upon a healthy bowl of minestrone soup and a salad….thinking I couldn’t go wrong ordering minestrone soup in an Italian restaurant. Apparently you can….way wrong. I was told it was a bowl of soup. Indeed it was in a bowl but contained less than a cup. And it was basically cold chicken broth with a few unknown vegetables floating on the top. It was horrible. Next came the Caesar salad which was excellent (the reason for the one star). Since the soup was anything but hearty I ordered the meatball appetizer. It took forever to come, was so hard I couldn’t cut it without a knife and the Marinara sauce, when it finally came ( it had been forgotten), was worse than any store bought. So my experience was awful. My wife ordered the sea bass which was great. In all fairness though, you don’t have to be Julia Child to grill sea bass. All in all, this restaurant has clearly gone down hill over the years which is a shame since it’s in such a convenient location to many west county folks. But there are many alternatives and I would certainly avoid...