Mamma G's — Restaurant in Town of Henrietta

October 2022 - When in Rochester, visiting Mama G's is a must. We sat in a different room at a rear corner table which was a first. Three of us ordered their arancini to share, one Pasta Alla Mugnaia main, two house salads with blue cheese and one soup, and another bottle of D'Abruzzo as before. Two new entrées were magnificent in their flavor, ingredients and presentation. Fine cooking by the Chef.

The Chicken French style dish consists of a cutlet breaded in an egg and cheese batter, served with a lemon and white wine sauce plus capers. Patrons can choose their pasta. My partner chose mugnaia. It was perfectly executed.

The Brodetto Fra Diavolo turned heads in the room when our waiter brought it to the table. This dish comes with an 8-10 oz. haddock fillet, clams, mussels, calamari in spicy red sauce.

10/2021 - Three of us chose to go back to Mama G’s. This is a genuine Italian Ristorante owned and run by a family from the Abruzzo region of Italy. It took some juggling to find us a table three days in advance.

Ordering the Pasta Alla Mugnaia, homemade in their kitchen, this was the first time I had mugnaia. It’s a fat, long rope of pasta that is not uniform in size as it breaks apart into pieces when dropped in boiling water. Translated to “pasta of the Miller’s wife,” this dish is served with red sauce and a mix of beef, lamb and pork. I didn’t detect much meat but I put a lot in my own Bolognese and maybe expected more. Still, very tasty and filling.

Their Saltimbocca Alla Romano made with sautéed pork loin, butter and Marsala wine, still reigns supreme for me in its traditional preparation. No cheese melted over it seen everywhere or even additional ingredients! The third main was Pennette Al Maialino Piccante, penne in red sauce with slow cooked pork meat. Thumbs up. We considered the pumpkin lasagna special.

Fried mozzarella appetizer gave us each a good sized triangle of toasty cheese. Shrimp app in cognac sauce was nice but we couldn’t detect flavor in the sauce. Another birthday celebration, our celebrant chose the chocolate cake the server told us her grandma had been rolling all day. Filled with a light chocolate mousse, it was easily finished.

This restaurant was recommended to us after arriving in Rochester. Reservations were recommended and Mamma G's nicely accommodated us last minute. My partner was impressed with the list of Italian red wines and ordered a bottle of the Vicolo Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC. Water with lemon came to our table.

We ordered the Arancini appetizer. Their homemade breaded rice balls are stuffed with green peas, bacon and mozzarella cheese. I could do without the peas, but these had the creamiest interior I have had yet to experience. A hearty white bread was served.

Choice of soup or salad with entrees: Two of us had salad with crumbled blue cheese/balsamic dressing, and one chose their soup, described as the Italian version of egg drop soup. We all enjoyed these courses.

Our mains were Scaloppina Di Vitello Al Marsala, which one has to be 21 to order, Saltimbocca Alla Romano and Pollo Alla Pizzaiola Piccante. The first two mains were ordered with a gnocchi side upgrade, one with olive oil/garlic, one with tomato sauce; the third with spaghetti and tomato sauce. I added salt, pepper and shaker parmesan to the tomato sauce to spruce it up.

A veal scaloppina is truly hand tenderized if pounding is heard from the kitchen before it's prepared. We did hear this, and the entrée was served with a minimalistic presentation and only its accompanying sauce. Sublime. The sautéed pork loin had a generous topping of prosciutto and was a fine example of this dish. The chicken breast with spicy sauce and melted mozzarella was a large serving so half of it was boxed up.

A comfortable place with pleasant service and an authentic Italian menu, it's definitely worth a dining experience whether visiting or...

I just left this restaurant and had the worst service I ever received at any restaurant. Six of us ordered food and after 45 minutes 2 people got their food and then 15 minutes later another persons food was served but the spaghetti was not cooked and was like rubber and was sent back for some cooked spaghetti. Then 15 minutes later the 4th person received their soup. Finally the last person food was delivered and the first 2 people were already done eating. The person that sent their spaghetti back never got their food and finally had to tell the waitress to cancel his order because everybody was done eating. The waitress was very nice and was very attentive and apologized over and over about the lateness of the food being sent out. The manager or owner at the register did come over and asked us what happened and we explained that we didn't think it was the servers fault. We then ordered 2 deserts which they took of our bill which was nice . However another employee started to sweep with a broom in large motions toward our table from the bathroom hall way out to where we were sitting which was totally disrespectful to us while we were sitting there and I asked to stop and she said they were closing with a rude attitude and then walked by and said that we shouldn't have made our waitress cry. Our waitress was very nice and we were nice to her so I don't know where this other rude employee who was totally out of line and disrespectful to speak to paying customers the way she did came up with these comments to us. The employee was a tall female around 6ft tall and if she worked for me I would have fired her right on the spot. We will not go back to this place or encourage...

Good service, but that's all. My wife and I arrived about 1&1/4 hours before closing, and they sat us without a reservation. So that earned them a 2nd star. Very friendly, quick and attentve service.

But the food was not good. I had rigatoni with meatballs. This meal cost $17 but was barely worth $10 - and thats all basically accounting for the cost of the meat. The thing that makes a pasta dish (which is traditionally a poor family's staple food, not a luxury item) is the sauce. Good sauce is why you can charge as much as a steak for something as cheap as pasta.

First of all, it wasn't a sauce, it was a marinara. Sauce is thick, marinara is watery. Big difference. Second, there was no seasoning. At all. No basil, no bay leaves, no oregano, nothing that would give any impression of eating Italian food. And while it was served with meatballs, the sauce itself had no meat in it. I mean come on guys... Wegmans sells pre-seasoned sauces if its really that hard. This tasted like plain tomato sauce mixed with water, poured onto slightly under cooked pasta (I'll take the blame for it being undercooked since we arrived so close to closeing time. Maybe they were in a rush. I've worked with food too and I get it.)

The booth we were in was falling apart as well.

I feel terrible leaving a bad review for good people. But they need to retrain their cooks or hire new ones. And then either fix up the restaurant or move into a nicer building.

The food problem could be fixed with 1 hour of watching "how to cook" videos on youtube. So if you see this, maybe give them a shot anyway. It could be better...