Scittino’s Italian Marketplace — Restaurant in Towson

My first time here. I’m picky about Italian food, because I am lucky to have had incredible Italian American food & authentic Italian food while living in NYC & traveling. Most Italian places I’ve gone to in the US tend to be mediocre to horrible. The tolerable being food I can be easily replicated at home.

There are sometimes exceptions, Scittino’s is one of these! One thing that makes for incredible food whether American or authentic Italian is that the food is a labor love, & desire to serve you the best food that they can. Always opting for quality fresh ingredients, not settling/cutting corners, knowing that small details make all the difference in the final product. Scittino’s does this.

It was tough deciding from the menu everything sounded great. I love eggplant parmigiana but was hesitant to order it. I only like when it’s made well. There is no middle ground/mediocre with eggplant parmigiana. It’s either excellent or disgusting. I ended up choosing the Salutare Peppe from the Old Country Artisan menu. It had marinated eggplant, which can be more forgiving in how it’s made than eggplant parm. My feeling is if the marinated eggplant was good the parm version would be worth trying in the future.

Holy camoley! The Salutare Peppe is the best Italian food I’ve tasted in at least a decade. The bread is perfect, the combination of ingredients is well thought out & perfectly balanced. The marinated vegetables had distinct flavor, the dressing had the distinct taste of olive oil & balsamic, the unique sweet/tart flavor of balsamic, the subtle notes of the herbs are all there. This is the kind of food that can cause you to make happy eating sounds, sing good food songs & break out in good food dance moves.

I will definitely be back! I will try the eggplant parmigiana next time. I will also heartily recommend this place to anyone I know in the Baltimore. I will also recommend it anyone I don’t know but I hear that they are looking for good Italian food!

I didn’t think about taking a pic of my food in the restaurant. This is the half that I brought home.

I will say that this place isn’t cheap, it may not fit everyone’s budget. I couldn’t afford the steak & seafood options personally. However, they do have affordable options to treat yourself with. Even though they aren’t cheap, the quality is so good that I feel like I got my moneys worth.

The service was also excellent! Everyone was warm, friendly, yet...

This place will be a gold mine. The food is already good, but right now they seem to need help figuring things out. The two people at the table next to us sent back their salad, so they obviously had some issues. As for our experience, my family of 4 waited for about 25 minutes, and they rushed us out after sitting us down in 35 minutes (even though there were plenty of open tables and no one was waiting after us). First thing we found out after sitting down was that they were out of pizza. I don’t know how they ran out of pizza but regardless. My wife and son ordered sandwiches and got large sandwiches on a plate. They never thought to charge an extra $2 and add chips. Or charge an extra $5 and add a side of pasta. They had a ton of olives for sale. How hard would it be to offer olives on the plate for an extra few dollars? Or my ziti- I ordered cheese garlic bread with it. When the ziti came, our waiter said my garlic bread was on its way. 3 minutes later the waiter returned to our table and said they were out of garlic bread (even though they had a lot of bread for sale). And no one thought to even bring me a piece of bread to go with the ziti. Or my $14 mixed drink- Our waiter spilled some of it right in front of us on the way to our table. But he never thought to have it re-made. He just gave me what wasn’t spilled, because I assume he didn’t want to get busted for spilling my drink and having it remade. And what was left of the mixed drink came in the same glass with the same cheap, plastic straw as my Coke. The mixed drink in that glass with a straw looked like an orange soda. What restaurant serves a $14 mixed drink with a plastic straw in a soda glass? After paying the bill we realized the waiter didn’t take off the cheese garlic bread. They fixed it but still. Considering how nice this place is inside, it’s like no one bothered to figure out details or how to properly train the staff.. Once they get it figured out this will be a great place, but it’s definitely got kinks to work...

Stopped in during the lunch hour to grab a sandwich for carryout. I ordered the Bello Leonardo, which was a bit pricey at $15 but absolutely delicious. I also made some purchases from the market, which had a good selection of reasonably priced pasta and the house pasta sauces. The bottles in the wine section seemed pricey, so I didn't buy any. The staff were friendly, which was also a plus, and there were clearly a lot of people behind the deli counter doing food prep.

However, I feel that the service needs work. I called initially to place my order for pickup, and was placed on hold for 7 minutes before being hung up on. Fortunately I work nearby, so that didn't put me out much, but it was annoying. Once inside, I noticed that there were delays getting my market purchases scanned and paid for, because the cashier was also doing hostess duties and having to walk back behind the counter into the back repeatedly. It also looked like the guy handing finished carryout sandwiches was also doing double-duty entering dine-in customer orders and bringing out drinks. Lastly, my coworker told me he'd also ordered a carryout sandwich online and intended to buy some stuff from the deli while he waited, but said that he left without buying anything when nobody took his order or addressed him even though he had been waiting in front of the counter. I have no complaints about the service once I was able to speak to the staff, but it's the period of waiting before that could use work. My thinking is that the place needs more front-of-house or customer-facing staff so that they aren't spreading the people currently in that...