Mario's Restaurant — Restaurant in Town of Lake George

The search continues. In 4 years going to lake George we have yet to find an establishment in Lake George that has real or good Italian food. Being Italian and from North Jersey I know good Italian food. This is an honest review and not embellished.

Let’s me just start by describing the sauce which is how all Italian restaurants are measured. The gravy/sauce here tastes like oregano infused jar sauce you find on supermarket shelves, I love oregano but not in my tomato sauce. This sauce had way too many seasonings and oregano added to it. The seasonings overpower the flavor of the sauce. It didn’t taste homemade. Im sorry, but this is not good or real Italian food. People that go here more than once probably don’t know any better and are used to store bought sauce you heat up and throw over pasta. They didn’t grow up making homemade sauce from Roma tomato’s annually like my family did. If you’ve ever had real homemade sauce, been to Italy or a real Italian restaurant you’ll know what I’m talking about. No real Italian restaurants add these excessive seasonings to their gravy. Marinara sauce should have olive oil, onions, garlic, salt and basil, that’s it. Red sauce is supposed to have a delicate, fresh, sweet flavor.

We started with clams casino, it looked dry and over cooked, wife claims they were the worst rendition of this popular dish she has ever eaten. I had the sausage parmigiana appetizer with the aforementioned ‘over seasoned’ sauce. The sausage was thinly sliced like you would find on a pizza pie, not larger cut pieces like I was expecting.

After the appetizer round, I knew the rest of dinner was going to be more of the same.

For dinner we ordered the beef braciole special. It had the same disgusting tomato sauce and the inside of the rolled up beef was extremely dry and overall the thinly sliced beef was tough and dry. I couldn’t find the cheese, garlic or parsley usually found in braciole, and it was obvious this dish was reheated and not freshly prepared. The Osso Bucco I personally ordered was easily the worst I’ve ever had anywhere as well. The sauce wasn’t a brown reduction as most versions are but rather was made up of carrots and celery in a clear broth, this was clearly not Osso Bucco. The veal was tough and I had difficulty cutting it off the bone, it should fall right off the bone.

The bill was almost a hundred dollars, that’s the real crime here. Having to pay for bad food you didn’t like. If you’re thinking why didn’t you let them know the food wasn’t to your liking, well its hard to complain about all of the food, everything was bad except for the bottled Pellegrino. So we were stuck paying for food we didn’t enjoy.

Service was ok and friendly, and I’m sure they mean well. Maybe they’re just catering to the customers and what they like. The food was such a disappointment it just didn’t matter. Stay clear of this place, unless you love the Olive Garden and think that’s real Italian food, which is the only explanation for the good reviews and seemingly happy customers. Instead go to Saratoga, there are some nice Italian restaurants...

Decided to stay in lake George as a midpoint to our destination. It was around 7:40 on Saturday night and figured the restaurant would be dying down since they close at 9. Upon entering from the pouring rain, we were immediately greeted by the hostess pretty much in the door asking if I had a reservation. I saw empty tables so I assumed they may have been reserved. I thought they didn’t accept reseverstions and her response was people make reservations weeks in advance With alittle tude. Okay 1/2 hour wait and I thought to myself, wow, the food must be fantastic if people reserve weeks in advance. My husband ordered the ministrone soup which was hot and delicious. Salad was just iceberg lettuce a couple coucumbers and cherry tomatoes. Nothing too fancy. I ordered the Italian antipasto an entree which was suspicious. I felt as if I got someone’s leftover chicken cutlet, dry and chewy. The stuffed mushrooms are still a mystery to me as the filling hard. The clams casino was a piece of bacon on top of a shell. Neither saw or tasted a clam. The shrimp scampi actually was good. The sauce on the spaghetti was not a “gravy” if you know what I mean. Anyway, my daughters lasagna was served on a plate. When the waitress brought it she stressed “DO NOT TOUCH, IT’S HOT!!!” Plate was hot, lasagna was lukewarm inside. Returned and we will assume it was microwaved. This is how we got this back. I was shocked and decided to keep my mouth shut, because I didn’t want to give my husband indigestion. His meal was the veal parm which he said was good. Omg!!! Hint people, serve your lasagna or baked ziti in a casserole style bowl or get glasses. This was ridiculous and should have never made it back...

I was appalled at the way my family was leered at the whole time we were trying to enjoy our meal, by a particular woman at the hostess station. We were sat to a booth immediately to the left when you walk in, which we did not object to. Our server was wonderful, but my boyfriend started to feel eyes staring at us, enough to where I thought he was paranoid until I caught onto it. It was enough for him to leave his $25 meal unfinished on the table (to which he stated were the best meatballs he ever had), and take our son outside, until our ticket was paid. He was that disturbed by this woman's constant staring and leering. I continued to watch her with other customers, to which she was very friendly! I have a strong feeling it was because of our mixed ethnicity at our table. I have never experienced being so uncomfortable eating in an establishment in my adult life! I feel more disgusted at the fact that when I laid down two $100 bills for our waitress, it felt like this woman purposefully walked after her to make sure my bills were real! My money is as good as anyone elses lady! This was our first family trip to Lake George, and our last to this establishment. Only the other two ladies at the hostess station were kind enough to remark how well behaved my children were before I left. I left my server a healthy tip as she was A-1 professional, the food was perfect, and our drinks were delicious. Shame on that lady for being so rude to...