Gambill's Pastaria | Fresh Pasta & Sourdough Pizza — Restaurant in Tulsa

Gambill’s atmosphere is a deli mixed with some New York Italian pastaria flair. Pictures adorn the walls, and It is a casual environment. After ordering your food from the front, the server will bring it out to you via a number system that is common in delis. For the first course, we were presented with the fried mozzarella with ranch and marinara. The fried mozzarella had a nice crust with a strong herb flavor that dominated the bite. The mozzarella was delicate. The crust-to-mozzarella ratio favored the crust. The ranch sauce had a creamy texture and a familiar taste. The marinara had strong beginning notes of garlic followed by tangy acidic notes of tomato, with endnotes of basil. The marinara was on the watery side and a pool of water had formed on the top. Next up, the fried mushrooms. These were delightful with a beautiful crispy crust and light salty seasoning. It seemed this dish was prepared by slicing mushrooms in half and blistering them in a fryer. The textural contrast of the crispy mushroom exterior was beautifully juxtaposed to the soft mushroom interior. Gambill’s has a menu dedicated to focaccia bread. We were presented with the “Pesto+Cheese Focaccia.” The offering was dense, thick, and crumbled as it pulled apart. Most focaccia has a crispy top and bottom with a light and well-aerated interior. The focaccia that was presented was tightly compacted with little aeration. The pesto on top added strong notes of basil and garlic. The first pasta course was spaghetti with meatballs in meat sauce. The pasta was cooked beautifully with a nice bite. The meatballs had a traditional meat and herb flavor profile, however, some were slightly tough. The meat sauce had a subtle tomato and water flavor profile with endnotes of ground beef. The second pasta dish was the “Alfredo Chicken Parm with Fettuccine.” The chicken parm had a crispy golden crust with a herbaceous flavor profile. The ratio of crust-to-chicken leaned more on the crust than the chicken side. The chicken had separated from the crust, indicating either a frozen chicken breast was used or there was no dusting of the chicken with flour, then egg bath, and finally seasoning. The chicken is not pounded; rather, it is cut in a manner suggesting a meat wheel cut it. The Alfredo sauce featured beginning notes of salt and cream with middle notes of butter and endnotes of garlic and stringent parmesan. The sauce is smooth with a velvety texture. After a few bites, it was monotonal. For the pizza, we were presented with the Meat Lovers. It looked gorgeous with a beautiful char on the crust. Upon picking a slice up, the toppings began to fall off as the middle was soggy and the crust was incredibly thin in the middle and could not support the toppings. The pizza was heavy on the toppings with a balance of crust-to-toppings ratio heavily favoring the toppings. The meats featured a distinctly Mediterranean flavor profile akin to Greek seasoning. The bottom of the pizza was soggy and coated in grease and fell apart as we picked it up. For dessert, we tried the tiramisu and New York-style cheesecake. The tiramisu was sweet, with a soft texture of cream and cake. There was no discernible flavor and it needed coffee or some flavoring to brighten up the dessert. The New York cheesecake had a curdled texture as it had not been cooked properly. The flavor featured beginning notes of egg and sugar giving way to middle notes of cream cheese, and endnotes of charred cheesecake. Gambill’s offers a dining experience that has clearly captured the hearts of many locals, earning a dedicated following. There were certainly some standout moments worth noting, such as the mushrooms. The portion sizes are impressively generous, offering great value for the cost. It is important to remember that we are not in New York City or Chicago. There are not many offerings quite like Gambill’s in Tulsa that are trying to recreate that Italian...

This review is not just a review of my one experience of this restaurant I think I think this review is of the lack of standards that we have as the public for service and products. I met my son for Father’s Day at approximately 545 we enter the restaurant in front of us is a group of five , two adults and three children all staring up at the menu. The menus is in a cursive font. 🤷🏻‍♂️ My son will be a sophomore in college and has never been required to learn this “dead” language. So it made decisions a tad tough. I also had a little difficulty perusing through the extensive variations of spaghetti and fettuccine all the while searching for lasagna, which I later found out is only on Thursdays 🤦🏻Mamma Mia!!!! So , you order before you sit down and they bring you your food. If you wish to drink soft drinks or tea, it self-serve through a soda fountain machine and the cups are stacked there next to the soda machine and you help yourself which is nice but I almost feel that if I’m paying $40 for two bowl of spaghetti and fried mozzarella I kind of want to drink out of a glass. Not an old red diner cup that once it’s washed It is stacked without being dried first. 💦 Then waiting on the ice to come out of the soda machine is like waiting on your prognosis results. They serve Pepsi products. I had Pepsi and it tasted fine. My son had sweet tea, and he said it wasn’t sweet enough, so he started drinking Pepsi.. One of the first things I noticed on the way to the tables from the soda machine was that there are ripped tablecloths on the tables. 🙋🏻‍♂️These were probably like two dollar tablecloths. I sat at a table that had a small rip, but there was a one larger next to us. I didn’t take a picture of it. I try not to pay too much attention to the atmosphere it was white it looked Cleenish. There is only one bathroom apparently that’s a male female and all the above type room. 🙋🏻‍♂️🤦🏻. The fried mozzarella came out fairly quick. It is not sticks. It is in little squares. It was pretty good I’m just not sold on their marinara. I expected more boldness and maybe more texture to it. By the way, I am not a foodie. I am just a disappointed customer of a lot of establishments. I’m just griping. Then the spaghetti came out shortly after that piping hot in these deep bowls, which I like the one thing I don’t like in my spaghetti and meatballs is the servers thumb so every time it dips over the edge of my bowl and my sons bowl and everybody else who is served Gag me with a Smurfette. My son’s first bite he looked at me and said it’s a little hard?!? And I told him a lot of places to cook it al dente, which is a little firm and I took a bite and I said yeah it’s a bit firm I said, but it’s still really hot. Maybe it’ll soften up here . And then as he ate be it through suggestion or actuality, he said it felt a little softer But I was having a different experience I felt the more I ate that tougher it was getting and so I left about a quarter bowl of the spaghetti because I thought it was a little too tough. We both enjoyed the meatballs, although I wish there was maybe one more as it comes with 3 . So sure there were things that I could point out that were maybe a three star review but the overall experience was 2.5 at best I feel I feel like restauranteurs think let’s see what we can get away with and if somebody complains we’ll fix it but I just feel like they were too many things that don’t deserve my time working hard to earn the money to spend at that establishment and I think if we all expected a little bit more we would get more for our dollar but I think until that happens we’re just gonna have to settle for what they want to give us . I am going to revisit this establishment one more time because I have to get the lasagna and everybody deserves a second chance. By Second...

Disclaimer: I have received no kickback or incentive for posting this review.

Its rough y’all. Dirty, Overpriced and Cheap Ingredients.

I was looking forward to trying this place. They are a family-owned business and I prefer to support local business owners. This restaurant appears to have started as a labor of love that is in sad need of an overhaul. Firstly, the location is on the rougher side of Harvard, so I wanted to show some grace towards the store front. There were some good things about Gambills, but in total, it is not worth it. My wife and I ordered the bruschetta appetizer, the calamari, the chicken fettuccine Pesto Alfredo, the Chicken Piccata and two glasses of wine. One positive was the portion sizes. It was a lot of food. We had a lot left over/left behind. Another positive was the sauces. The sauce on my chicken piccata was thin but flavorful. The pesto Alfredo on my wife’s chicken was also delicious. Another positive was that my wife’s fettuccine was perfectly cooked. The chicken was cooked well in both dishes. Now the negatives. We’ll start with the equipment, service and layout. The restaurant is casual “order and take a seat” place. You have to get your own plates, water, silverware & to-go boxes. Plus, you bus your own table afterward. (We tipped the server $20 to walk our plates 10 feet to our table. They never checked back, never gave refills. You do everything. Gambils- Remove the option to tip. It is not deserved.) My water glass was dirty and I pulled out a rolled tomato skin from inside of it. My $7 glass of Yellow Tail (cheap college wine) was served in a 5oz beer flight glass with a crack down the side. When I walked it back up to the counter and brought it to the attention of the server, she grabbed another glass to pour the wine into the uncracked glass. No, I said, there maybe a small shard of glass in that wine. It should be discarded. She poured me another glass of wine. This one had an unidentified floaty in it. It looked like a piece of unfried batter. The bowls on both my wife and my dishes were chipped, the table cloth from our table had ripped holes in it and was dingy. The spoon I got my wife was dirty/had dried on food. There was one small unisex bathroom, no changing table for our infant and the generic hand soap was diluted with water. Really? The whole place felt pretty unclean. We were there for 45min and it was one disappointment after another. Alright, now onto the food. The calamari was 75% batter, and pieces of it were stale. I don’t know how that is possible in a fried food. I couldn’t taste any calamari whatsoever, just breading. The Bruschetta was served with large piece of partially sliced untoasted focaccia bread. The topping was served in a bowl on the side. The topping had clearly been made in large batches days before and resembled salsa. Against my gut feeling, we grabbed a $6 half pint of Honey Sriracha Gelato on the way out. It was ok. In total, we spent right at $100 for our meal after taxes and tip. Unacceptable. The meal, experience and service was worth $50 tops. Come here if you don’t mind dirty broken dishes, overpriced, yet somewhat flavorful dishes and watered-down hand soap. Spend a bit more and go elsewhere. This is not a place to go on a date. Its also not a place to come to save money. Its not quick service. Essentially, there is no reason to come here. If all other Italian restaurants in town shut down and you HAVE to eat here, place an order to go, so you don’t have to deal with diluted soap and dirty dishes. The owners need to overhaul their practice. Their customers deserve better. What appears to have started as a labor of love has become a “one and done”...