Taste of Italy 23 — Restaurant in Town of Colonie

If I could give it no stars, I absolutely would.

There's really nothing good I can say about this place. Yes, the server was nice, but didn't actually serve us. We filled our own drinks. We got our own napkins and silverware.

There were only 2 other tables with customers, which should have been a red flag for us, but unfortunately we weren't paying attention closely enough. At least 3-4 of the tables were not bused for the entire time we were there and appeared to have been the dumping ground for any / all dirty dirty dishes, paper products, etc. GROSS!

We are Italian. We have been to Italy. We've been to phenomenal Italian restaurants in NY and elsewhere. We know what good Italian food is. This is NOT it!!! I don't know any Italian or anyone with a decent palate that would ever consider this to be "the taste of Italy."

THE FOOD: ordered soup & wings as the 1st course. The soup took nearly 45 min to come out (we asked 3x for it - "still being prepared") and once it did, it was inedible. I don't if it was by accident or not, but it tasted as if an entire canister of salt was dumped into it. We did bring it to the servers attention, but it was not taken off the bill. The wings were extremely small and way overcooked and certainly not fresh like they claim them to be. Tossed salad was served warm - yuck! I can't imagine how much bacteria was on it. This too was brought to the servers attention, yet nothing was done about it. The kids ordered cheese pizza, which was overly greasy (had to use a ton of napkins to try to get some of the grease off) and had no flavor expect for grease and basil. They each had a bite or 2 before starting to whine that they wouldn't / couldn't eat it and were hungry. We offered them some of our "chicken parmigiana" when it eventually came out. There had to have been close to a 1/2 lb of fake cheese dumped on overly deep fried chicken which was covered in what can only be described as tomato paste. Oh! There was also an abundance of basil on top. We reluctantly tried the pasta. Yeah, nope! Same paste. Same overly seasoned with basil taste. The server did stop over to ask how things were. Our kids, who typically are polite and kind, did not hesitate in telling the server how disgusting the food was. They were certainly honest....and right. When kids don't / won't eat pizza or pasta, you know it's bad! We left tired, hungry and frustrated. We ended up stopping at a different establishment to get take-out, which was wonderful!

Let me add that the prices are outrageous! We've been to high end restaurants that don't even charge as much for their entrées as this, mainly, order at the counter, place.

If you want over priced, greasy, overcooked, over salted, over (basil) seasoned, out of a can "sauce", deep fried food in a dirty dirty establishment, then by all means, come to this place.

If you want good food, then keep driving, bc this isn't it!!!!

As a side note to anyone reading reviews for this place, be aware, bc some of the positive reviews were posted by the owner, maybe in an attempt to up their rating.

Now the owner wants to claim it’s a fake review bc they just aren’t willing / able to acknowledge that ppl don’t like their overpriced, poorly prepared, filthy establishment. Numerous negative reviews but they’re all fake??? Come on!!! I hope others see the humor in that, but let’s just pretend for a moment that the reviews are, as he wants to claim, fake. How could sooooo many people want to give a negative review?

Do I need to call the owner for him to try to convince me that his place doesn’t suck? Nope! If he thinks he’s going to bait me, he’s poorly mistaken, but...

My dad and I have been to Taste Of Italy about twice now. We absolutely love Frank and he has taken such great care of us which is why it pains me to give 4 out of 5 stars for service over this one time. We went in for pizza this past Friday and have sat at the same table each time. We saw that there were multiple tables set up together but actually no one sitting at them so we thought it was available. One of the waitresses asked if we were part of the party of 20 (we were not). We asked to speak to the manager in which the manager obliged our request to do so. The manager along with Frank were the ones willing to accommodate however, it was this one waitress who seemed to take the fact that both my dad and I are in wheelchairs and blow a simple accommodation of making a table for us out of proportion. While both Frank and the manager were trying to work with us to figure something out the waitress kept saying "but we have a party of 20" and even giving the poor manager an attitude about the fact that we just wanted to a nice dinner there. We finally just left because it seemed like this waitress wasn't going to give up on the fact there was a large party. I feel bad that the restaurant lost our service that night but I want my review to also serve as a reminder to all public places that regardless of a person's mobility situation it is always in the best interest for all parties involved to work with each other. We will be back as our experience has been great. We hope this was just a one...

There is no way anyone can post a bad review about taste of Italy. They happen to be District number one place to go whether your dining in or dining out it’s just amazing so whoever posts anything negative do not pay attention you would never get anything that has been on the shelf long. I have been watching their Facebook for a while and all of the delicious dishes that they post so we decided to go I will say it’s definitely a Friday night affair for me every week. Amazing it’s not just a pizza house that you would probably view it for this is truly a five-star restaurant better than any Italian restaurant in the 518 And beyond if you want something off the menu, no problem because if you come from an Italian background and you’re looking for something to go with your dish, ask frank or dom it’s a no problem question done! Not to mention Frank and his wife son work very hard They also make sure that the walk-through and shake hands with all the customers that come in and make them feel welcome just like if you walked into Someone’s home in an Italian culture, they want to make sure you’re happy. It was a pleasure and a treat. If you have not been to taste of Italy, yet making a must if I could leave 20 stars, I would not to mention it’s very clean as well. Great music thank you so much Frank, Alyssa, and dom. It was a wonderful...