Trattoria Da Vittorio — Restaurant in Town of Orangetown

I wanted to believe all the reviews I've seen raving about the food here and after trying many dishes, I left disappointed and hungry.

Overall, my table ordered about 3 apps, and 3 entrees. All were not great.

Lets start with the apps. Fried zucchini flower - They came out limp and at room temperature, bordering cold. These are supposed to be freshly fried but they came out in 5 minutes, and ended up being soggy and not even hot. 1/5

Stuffed clams - These were better but nothing to rave about. At the least the came out a bit hotter than the zucchini flower. 3/5

Caesar salad - Salad was a little sad, it lacked the crisp you'd expect of fresh romaine. The dressing was a little off, lacking the sharp taste youd from fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano. 2/5

Entrees Oxtail Ragu - This was a very sad dish. The pasta was stale! I love my pasta al dente with a nice chew and texture, however this pasta was not that. The parpadelle broke apart whenever I tried to pick it up. The taste was bland and the pasta tasted like it's been sitting for years with an odd texture and almost plastic taste. The oxtail was okay, it could have been cooked longer for a truly tender melt in your mouth meat. Oh also, this one came out at room temp. How are you serving fresh pasta and it comes out like this, cold. 1/5

Chicken Parm - They use dark meat which sounded like it could be very promising but to everyone's surprise, the meat was dry!! How in the world do you try out chicken thighs? The meat was also overly brined, on it's own it was way too salty and the brine broke the meat down into a not so pleasant texture. This one also came out room temp and mushy. This was fresh out of the wood burning oven? Hard to believe. Overall this one was dry, mushy, cold, overly salty. 1/5

Spaghetti Alla Panettiere Mezza Notte - The best one of them all, yet the cheapest to make. $27 though? 3/5

The place was overcrowded with tables and we felt cramped up. The lighting was a bit too dim and could barely see the menu. I wanted to like the place but in the end, the food talks. And this place really dropped the ball on what good Italian...

CELIAC DISEASE BEWARE (Edit) Went back for happy hour (great drinks, I'll give them that!) & my sister ordered a salad and the server told her the PASTA in the salad were BEANS. The staff has absolutely no allergy awareness. The owners of this restaurant are fake Italians because I've never been met with such ignorance during my trips to Italy. Real itialians know what gluten is and take allergies/celiac disease very seriously. Sorry but these owners are far from authentic. This would never happen at an actual Italian trattoria over the pond.

CELIAC DISEASE BEWARE: the staff says their pizza is gluten free, however the dough contains wheat therefore it contains gluten and is not safe for celiac. The manager showed me the bag of flour and it is NOT gluten-free flour. The staff is unfortunately misinformed (I am a registered dietitian and audit hospital kitchens for allergy compliance for a living). It may be safe for those with non-celiac gluten sensitivity as the flour is imported from Italy and is very high quality. For celiacs (like myself) I recommend the GF pasta dishes. I enjoyed gluten free spaghetti! But still- be very careful because the staff TRULY does not know what they're talking about when it comes to gluten.

I will say that for non gluten-free people, the food and wine/beer selection is excellent. The atmosphere is a lovely local trattoria feel. I really want this restaurant to succeed so I am still leaving 5 stars for the food. But they MUST get educated on allergies and celiac disease and stop telling people the pizza is gluten-free!

I look forward to returning to this spot when they iron our the service kinks. It was hard to get answers to questions about the menu, especially if you have an allergy or something. The restaurant is super popular and busy but the service seems to still be...

Some American friends of mine told me about this restaurant, they always talk to me and ask my opinion about Italian restaurants they should go to since I am from Italy. I don't live close by, however yesterday I happened to be in the area with some friends when we got hungry we decided to stop by. There were 4 of us, me being the only Italian. I called to see if we needed a reservation but since it was around 3 pm they said if you come by now we can accommodate you. We got there, the place is absolutely lovely, it has a very warm and cozy atmosphere. My friends asked me to order for everyone so I did, I ordered some appetizers: tagliere with cold cuts, aged prosciutto di parma sliced in front of us, mortadella, salame and selection of cheeses with freshly baked warm focaccia from a wood burned brick oven, plus a margherita pizza and a salsiccia pizza. It was absolutely delicious and overall outstanding. For the main course we decided to share a few things: pasta all norma (fried eggplants, ricotta salata cheese, tomatoes), pasta with pesto, then surf and turf: grilled branzino (outstanding), NY strip grilled to perfection (medium rare) and broccoli rape, the focaccia kept coming. For dessert we had Sicilian cannoli and sfogliatella from Naples, unbelievable. Let's not forget about a very important thing, the wine. Since they have this 50/50, 50 wines at $ 50 per bottle, we had a bottle of prosecco and 2 bottles of red wine, a super Tuscan and an Aglianico from Campania (Naples) so we had a little wine tasting, beautiful. The service was outstanding from the moment we walked in. The owner himself, Vittorio, in an impeccable blue double breasted suit, stopped by our table several times to make sure everything was okay. I highly recommend...