Casa D'Italia — Restaurant in Tupelo

Finally an Italian restaurant in the area! We are really excited for this place being open. First let me get the negatives out of the way before getting into the positives ... The organization and seating process was abysmal. I am accounting for the fact that it was 6:00 pm on a Saturday when we went. The foyer was full of people that hadn't been placed on a "list" for at least 10-15 minutes before being added according to name and group size. A group of 4 or 5 came in after we did and said something to the hostess and was immediately taken to a table with menus. I am not certain if they were part of an already seated group or not, but it didn't seem that way. There wasn't a clear order to being seated and caused the experience to be a little less than favorable.I am sure this will be taken care of with a little more time getting the processes in order. Total wait time to be seated was between 20 and 30 minutes. Once seated we noticed the ambient music was louder than what we heard in the foyer area near the bar which was almost distracting. Come to find out there was a speaker in the ceiling almost directly overhead. In my opinion, it could be turned down a bit. That is really all the items that I believe need improvement. Now on to our server, Ashley. She was fantastic. She let us know upfront that the food was coming out slowly and there may be a wait time. She checked in with us several times and kept our glasses full. We were really impressed with her and it being a new restaurant. On to the food! The bread and oil was great. Soft with a firm crust and very flavorful. It is in a kind of donut shape as opposed to the more common roll or bread sticks. Next as an appetizer we ordered the stuffed mushrooms. OMG! These were soooo good. The marinara sauce was exceptional! The entrees were the Tour of Italy and the Pasta Sampler. The marinara and melted cheeses stole the show. It was a little different than the appetizer but was excellent! Both the lasagna and fettuccine Alfredo were just ok. The Alfredo was gritty and rather bland. The noodles were cooked well. The lasagna was just that, lasagna. The only standout was the sauce and melted cheeses. The chicken Parm was cooked nicely and had good flavors. While I'm not a super fan of soggy fried food like most of the chicken parmigiana you get, this chicken was still fairly firm and crunchy. The pasta sampler was decent. Something to get if you want to try several items. The cannelloni was really good. Desert, we took home because we were stuffed, but we did try it "fresh". Let me say that tiramisu is probably my favorite desert and this did not disappoint. We left full and satisfied with our first visit. There are several items on the menu that we want to try, especially my favorite, frutti di mare. We understand that this is a new restaurant and may take a little while to get everything up to speed. We will definitely be coming back because the food and server were great. Give this...

Brand new Casa D’Italia! We were a party of 9, and we got seated in a reasonable amount of time, even with the parking lot being completely full.

As far as the three stars for the atmosphere, there were a few flies in the room we were in, but they didn’t get the chance to get too close to the food. Also, the room echoed quite a bit, so we felt like we were being very loud, but honestly, it didn’t bother me too much. It’s nothing that isn’t already common for any other restaurant.

The food was exceptional. We had the fried ravioli (which was my favorite) and the cheesy bread as appetizers; they were both very good. Complementary bread was also brought to table.

My main entrée was the shrimp Alfredo, which was delicious. The portions were substantial, everyone had a bit left to take home. We were celebrating a few birthdays, and they brought out complementary dessert, and sang for us. The hostess even took a photo of me and my father for us to have, which I thought was a very thoughtful touch.

The service was attentive, friendly, and, from what I could see, hard working. Our server was Fabio, and he was very polite and attentive. They are new, and it was basically a full house, but really the only time we had to wait was for them to pick up our check, which in retrospective, didn’t take that long. I always practice patience with servers/waitresses, and I have no complaints whatsoever.

Will definitely...

I don’t normally leave reviews but I just had to for this place because I was extremely let down considering the way this place advertises itself and the price of it all. The service and the atmosphere were both fine. It’s a nice building; the staff were respectful and friendly. The only complaint in that department is that the floors are really quite greasy and I imagine it would be really easy to slip and fall, especially for the elderly. Now, onto the food. For starters everything looks like it was pulled out of a frozen box. Our appetizers were clearly pulled from a box in the freezer and I suspect that the calamari may have even been old given its strong fishy smell and rubbery texture. The salad was served with hardly any dressing on it and the dressing was probably store bought. The entree courses were bland and the sauces are clearly made in large batches and not made fresh each time. If you’ll notice the sauce on the spaghetti carbonara is split and they just served it like that. The veal is rubbery and it’s clear that they buy it already breaded from the fact that the crust was moist and soggy underneath the sauce. The olive oil appetizer they serve you doesn’t even taste like olive oil. If you want my advice just go to Olive Garden. It’s a thousand times cheaper and honestly might be better than whatever the “cooks” are...