Ruffino's Spaghetti House — Restaurant in Virginia

This is a review of my experience at Ruffino's Spaghetti House on Valentine's Day 2016.

Although I had my reservations about eating at Ruffino's given the mixed reviews online, I decided to give it a shot and went there for dinner with my girlfriend last night. Overall, although the quality of the food and ingredients should warrant 3 - 3.5 stars, the service at Ruffino's Spaghetti House drops my rating of this restaurant to 2 stars and I am very unlikely to return because of it.

Throughout the entire night, my girlfriend and I were never asked how our food was or whether or not we needed anything. It was 10-15 minutes after being seated before a server even took our drink orders and another 20 minutes before our appetizer, a rustic bruschetta, found its way to our table. The theme of the night (being good food and poor service) continued with another 20-30 minute wait before our entrees arrived (chicken parmigiana for me and chicken picatta for my girlfriend) and the food was literally dropped off at our table with the server immediately walking away without a word. I actually had to get up and walk across the restaurant to ask for parmesan cheese for our pasta. Nobody ever came back to check up on how or food came out and it took the servers 10 minutes to notice we had finished eating (which is made worse by the fact that restaurant is a single room and that all tables are clearly visible from almost everywhere). Finally, as we were walking out, I made eye contact with the owner of the restaurant and wasn't even thanked for coming or for my business.

As a hobbyist chef myself, while the food at Ruffino's was decent, it wasn't anything that I couldn't have made at home on my own. What I am really searching for when I go out to eat is good service and the feeling that my business as a customer is valued and I simply did not get that feeling...

I really had high hopes for this place but you cant judge a book by its cover or name in this case. I am giving 2 stars because the service was great and the place is cute inside. The food however.... we ordered Spaghetti with marinara sauce and meat balls, a side of meat sauce, garlic bread, the mussels in wine sauce and tortellini de chef. The marina sauce reminded me of Paces mild salsa which isnt awful but it's not Italian food, the meatballs... you can get better ones from Costco frozen, the meat sauce literally tasted like chef boyardee, the tortellini de chef was okay but it tasted like the fresh pasta you buy at the grocery store and throw ragu white sauce on top of... the muscles were okay but was missing that "umph" to really put you over the top and set the mood for the rest of your experience there. The garlic bread was not great but the best thing we had probably. I really had high Hope's for this place but they arent trying to be authentic. If they spent a little more money on fresh ingredients and focused more on the recipes, they would have better reviews and probably more profit. They have a great atmosphere and the staff was great but the food needs to be fixed especially with the name they have... Ruffino's...

1.) The menu price is misleading as the actual price on the bill is different. The waitress said when asked they changed the price but did not yet update the menus.

2.) Food came out at all different times. We were a party of 2 and we waited for the other person to receive there food for quite a while.

3.) The chicken parm was plated oddly. There was a large plate just for the chicken parm and a separate large bowl for just the pasta and no room on the table. I had to transfer the pasta to the plate with the chicken and put the bowl on the floor. My wife had to do the same.

4.) Garlic bread was the worst I have ever seen. Firstly, whatever bread it was, was certainly stale. Secondly, I hate to even call it garlic bread, it was smeared with something but it was awful

5.) Service was slow

6.) Mariana Sauce and the pasta were very bland

7.) My wife is gluten free and got spinach as a side instead of pasta. It was cooked in margarine and all we could really taste was the margarine

On the plus side, the chicken...