Italian Bistro - Monkey Junction — Restaurant in Wilmington

I've eaten in the restaurant twice & got take out tonight. If you'd asked me yesterday, I'd have said we loved it. But tonight, the experience was terrible. Part of it is not the fault of the employees, but a big part of it absolutely is.

The first thing that went wrong is that the Google business listing for the Monkey Junction location has a link to order online, but it sent us to the Market Street location! We didn't even notice that because we started at the correct location on the Google listing, so we assumed that the "Order Online" link would be taking us to the location from the business listing!! But it didn't. So I waited 20 minutes and drove to the Monkey Junction location, and they didn't have the order. Then I had to call the Market Street location and cancel the order (and feel guilty about wasting that food), and ask for a refund to the credit card. Then, I had reorder everything at the monkey junction location and then wait another half an hour while they pulled together the order. And this is where the cooks destroyed the experience.

The girl at the register was perfectly polite, apologized for the situation, and even admitted that this wasn't the first time this has happened. She explained that someone at the corporate office needs to resolve the Google business listing problem. But the food was made so poorly, we ended up throwing most of the $98. (!!!) meal in the trash (which included a $5 tip!). The parma rosa sauce on both of the dishes we ordered with it was so sparse, we had to add store-bought spaghetti sauce to both of them! These dishes were $17.95 each and it was probably 75 cents of dry pasta, and probably 2 tablespoons of the sauce.

Then there was the eggplant Parmesans... We ordered one of the eggplant Parm entrees (another $17.95 dish), and another of the eggplant Parm sandwiches. Both of them were absolutely inedible. First, it was clear that the slices of eggplant used for both dishes had been sliced and fried much earlier -- possibly even the day before! They were as hard as thick pieces of cardboard!! Our teeth could not even penetrate through them with each bite! They also put ZERO tomato sauce between the slices (which might have helped soften up the eggplant slices, at least a little), so they were not only like biting into hard shoe leather, but it was DRY shoe leather. The only thing that was edible at all was the mozzarella sticks, and they were barely edible, swimming in oil (the cook obviously didn't drain them before putting them into the to-go container).

Even more concerning than all of the problems with the food, was the fact that one of the young men who was operating the registers and bagging up the food, had a very serious sounding, hacking cough, and he didn't have a mask on, nor did he even TRY covering his mouth while coughing!! If any of my family gets sick with bronchitis, flu or COVID in the next few days, we will know exactly where it came from. That was extremely disturbing to me, as several in my family have chronic immune system problems.

This location has only been open for a couple of months and the food quality has gone from 5 stars, to 1 star (but if I could give it 0 stars, I would). I'm sorry but having to pull together our order at the last minute because their online ordering system is messed up is NOT enough of an excuse for how terrible this food was.

And this was supposed to be a very special dinner -- our adult kids are launching off into the world and leaving the state tomorrow! We wanted it to be special, and we barely ate any of it. We would hope this was just a 1-off problem and that they will be better in the future, because before today, this restaurant was the best Italian food we've had since we moved here 2 years ago. But after throwing away 95% of an almost-100 dollar meal, we don't plan to spend another penny here to find out. If you're going to eat the food from this restaurant, I highly suggest that you eat IN, so that if it's as bad as ours was tonight, you can at least send it back and get your...

My boyfriend and I decided to try this place since it’s new and just down the street from us. We love Italian food and frequent another restaurant in town but it’s located in Seagate, so a bit of a drive for us.

Italian Bistro is tiny, tables are seated close together. Too close. The man sitting at the table next to us, put all of his items (hat and the entire spice rack from the table) between him and I, making it awkward and impossible for me to get up if I wanted to.

Looking at the menu, it’s a big menu. Almost too big. Too many pastas to choose from in my opinion and we felt rushed from our waitress to order. So we started off with bruschetta. After we ordered bruschetta, we were given a basket of bread. Would’ve been nice to know we got free bread before we ordered a $10 appetizer that had 6 tiny slices of bread on it.

We both got pasta - my boyfriend got the Arrabiatti. He thought it was good and very spicy. He has a severe dairy allergy and unfortunately, that left him with 4 options pasta wise. The Italian place we go to regularly, makes everything so fresh that the chef can adjust and remove dairy from 85% of the dishes if need be. So this dish, while he enjoyed it, was the only one that he could eat and enjoy.

I got the 3 cheese chicken pasta and I loved everything but the chicken. The white wine sauce was more liquid than sauce, giving the pasta a little flavor. The veggies in the dish were delicious and so was the tortellini. Huge portions though.

Overall: we’ve had better pasta in town, hands down. And for the price they charge, it’s definitely not worth it for us. Most dishes are $17-$20 and then you have to add an extra $4-8 for whatever protein you want added to it. The atmosphere was rushed for a Monday but they are relatively new.

We did decide we will go back at some point to try their pizza though. It looked delicious and we both wish we got that instead of pasta!

If you live in Monkey Junction and don’t want to drive to other parts of town and like Italian food, then this is really your only option. So go...

I hate leaving reviews like this, but my first experience with Italian bistro was not a pleasant one unfortunately. I was at work and a customer hear me saying I’d love some pasta for lunch , and she recommended Italian bistro, I said ok, I got there and the cashier was friendly, helped me choose the pasta , asked if I want lunch or dinner size , I asked is dinner size bigger? He said yes, I said ok dinner size then. Didn’t really care about the price as long as I get a Dinner size plate! He told me initially 10 min, it took 20 , I was already late at work but that’s not their fault.i should’ve planned accordingly, …… the girl helping there , taking her sweet time, taking a sip of her drink …. Moving very slow in a kitchen that looked quite busy, I finally see her walk towards me , very slow, I had to remind her I also paid for a drink , anyway I get that and I’m on my way . I get to work , open the caserole and I’m shocked, my almost 30$ pasta looked like this. Writing this I’m still at work, still hungry because that’s how my order looked like. Very sad and still...