La Zingara Trattoria — Restaurant in Wheeling Township

I'm so, so disappointed that I have to write this review... I have been a fan for YEARS. At least since 2017, maybe more. I used to live in the area several years ago and the food was literally the best Italian food in Chicagoland. Yeah--bold statement, but the food would have backed up my claim easily. However, now that the restaurant is under new management and/or ownership (within a little over a year ago), the food is awful... I always got the pasta with vodka sauce (which originally was penne alla vodka, or penne with vodka sauce) with large chunks of delicious prosciutto. The dough knots were amazing and honestly all of the other dishes were anything but subpar (especially the classics).

But now? The pasta with vodka sauce is awful. It's so creamy that it has 0 flavor and I swear the prosciutto isn't actually prosciutto anymore--it seems like bacon to me as its dry. It has the consistency of salad bacon bits and they are SO tiny now that I HARDLY got any in the entire dish. The dough knots? They taste just like Olive Garden breadsticks now which were NOTHING like what the original dough knots tasted like. Never before did they have a garlic taste to them nor were they so bready and airy. If I remember correctly, they were originally made out of left over pizza dough. The baked mostaccioli has 0 flavor and is very acidic and the sauce is watery. Before, it was packed with flavor and had a great consistency, never extremely runny. Also, you were never able to taste dry pasta before in it. The lemon chicken used to come in large servings and was swimming in the sauce with lots of vegetables. Now? Half the amount of chicken given than before, little to no sauce, it's dry and half the helpings of vegetables are given. With our recent take out order, none of us have finished our meal at all, which never used to happen with LZT. The salad dressing had maybe a pinch of spices, a drop of balsamic, and the entire thing was filled up with oil.

I'm so sad about this because for a year of my life after moving away from the area, we had been searching all over the eastern half of the US for anything even close to old LZT. Nothing came anywhere close to what it used to be and now I guess I have to keep searching for the original flavors LZT brought to the table elsewhere. :(

FYI--I'm giving 2 stars because the waitstaff has always been awesome...

La Puccaria!

If I could give zero stars I honestly would. I was in there a few weeks ago to take family from out of town to dinner. Previously, I was there in April for my birthday with my wife and son. Although the service was slow and the food took a while to come out it was a relaxed enjoyable evening. The food quality was great. A couple weeks ago not so much. There were 12 of us altogether 10 adults and 2 small children. We had to get our own menus. After my son accidentally broke a water glass, the owner picked up some pieces and kicked the smaller ones to the side. I kindly returned the remaining glass on the table to the bar. The appetizers took a while to come out and it seemed the portions were smaller than what I remember. The entrees took foreeevvvverr to come out! 2 and a half hours after we sat down to have dinner on a Tuesday night. The kicker? The waiter came by and asked us what we were forgetting here. My plate, my wife's, son's and nephew's plate were not served. I told him you are seriously asking me what you are forgetting you are the waiter? 10 minutes later the waiter came back and said I'm sorry so seriously what are we missing here? At that point we asked for the owner. He took his sweet time coming over because he was making coffee for other tables. Apparently, only having one server working a Tuesday night isn't a good idea. Especially one who can't make coffee. When the owner did come to speak with us all he could say was that he was so sorry and that another party who came in for dinner ordered alot of food. So, another table having dinner is the reason our entrees were ungodly late being served? The reason why 4 of our plates were missing? He did say he would comp the plates that they never bothered serving us. How nice of them! When they took their sweet time to bring our bill my wife finally peaked into the kitchen and asked for the server. With the owner just hiding in the back not bothering to take any action to bring our bill or make things better by discounting the bill. A complete side show circus. Never again. Stay far far away...

Place gave me and another person in our party violent food poisoning. When my wife called the next day to inform them the person who answered had the response of “oh ok” and hung up.

We were in last Saturday Night, was a party of 8 people. My wife, (3) daughters and I, along with our friends a couple with their daughter. We were seated right by the front door. We were there around 7pm. In our party myself along with our friend were the only 2 people in the party to have entrées that had a red sauce (our friend had rigatoni and I had the cheese ravioli) we were also the only in our party to use the Parmesan cheese.

Dinner seemed fine and nothing tasted weird or off, service was excellent, atmosphere was nice. But around 2am that night I was bolted out of bed to the washroom which I basically remained for the next 2 days. We had gotten a message very early morning from our friends asking if we’re were ok and her fiancé (the other in our party who also go sick) was having terrible abdominal pains and couldn’t leave the washroom. My wife informed them I was in the same condition but thankfully our girls (4y, 2y, 6m) were all fine along with herself.

We reached out to the restaurant on Sunday (12/1) probably sometime around 3-4pm as that is when our children were napping and whoever answered the phone my wife had stated this information to, she didn’t get the name. There response was “oh… ok.” And then hung...