Osteria la Spiga

Reviews 4

CH

Christy Nguyen

Going into this restaurant, I sooo sooo soo wanted to like it. Walking in, I loved the decor and the atmosphere, but very quickly after that, it went downhill. I went here for my birthday dinner with a group of friends and had the worst experience both food and service-wise. From the beginning, the hostess did not even take us to our table, just pointed to where it should be. Everything took a long time. The majority of the night was waiting. Our reservations were at 8:15 and we didnt leave until after 11, not by choice. After taking our order, they didnt even think to take our menus. They brought the flat bread to our table, but didnt even bring olive oil. When they did bring the oil, there was only one small platter for 8 ppl. More than half the group could not reach it since we were sitting at the large round tables. After we ordered, it took at least 30 minutes before we got our food. The food did not even come together. Half the group ordered from the tasting menu, half ordered from the regular menu. I had the Duck Ragu Pappardelle. This is my favorite type of pasta. Ive had it at many other restaurants. The papardelle at La Spiga was so heavy handed and dry. Duck is normally a fatty meat, but Ive never had such dry duck in my life. It tasted extra gamy. The rest of the group ordered some gnocchi off the tasting menu, the mushroom linguini also off the tasting menu. Both were disappointing. The mushroom pasta was dry and the gnocchi tasted like spaghetti-Os. They did not inform us that the tasting menu was family style. Family style would be bearable, except they brought a pasta for two, but brought no extra plates. Did they expect two men to eat off the same plate? 20 minutes into our pasta, the server brought another pasta to one of my friends. Turns out they brought him the wrong one in the first place. My friend was halfway through a bite and the server rudely took away the plate without apologizing. With the poor quality of their service, Im wondering if they took it so they could re-serve it. What makes this even worse is, how could they bring out someones entree 20 minutes after everyone else gets theirs? This also means someone who did order that pasta was probably sitting there wondering what happened to their food. Our server asked me if I wanted a refill on my coke towards the very very end of the meal. Too bad I wasnt the one who ordered the coke, it was my friend sitting next to me. Thats all fine and good, except after he did bring the coke, he brought it to me again. All in all, this is, hands down, one of the worst places Ive ever been. I wouldnt wish this restaurant on my worst enemy. I would have rather gone to Olive Garden. Please avoid this place at all costs. One thing I will add is they must have recognized that they were failing horribly on their service that they comped two glasses of wine for us. Still not worth it.

SA

Sam Meade

My family took me to LA Spiga on Sunday. Great, beautiful space. We had a reservation and got right in. Our server was attentive, but not overly. Our first course was fried piadina bread served with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and eggplant with salsa verde. It was very tasty although I didnt eat the eggplant. I hate eggplant. Anyway the fat little pillows of piadina were delicate, delicious and tasty with the mozzarella and prosciutto. Our second course was all four of the classic handmade pastas. Gnocchi pomodoro - perfect. Some idiot on a prior review said it tasted like spaghettios. That person should probably stick to Olive Garden and Bucca di Beppo. The gnocchi is handmade. The scratch sauce has had all the tomato seeds milled out, (the recipe is from the Italian proprietors Mother!), it tastes bright and intensely of tomato tossed hot with Parmagiano melted into the sauce - just as it should be. The tagliatelle with ragu was flawless. Perfectly al dente, just enough of the rich meat ragu tossed with parmigiano and still nice and hot. The tagliatelle with truffle butter and parmigiano was perfectly al dente and tossed with truffle butter and parmigiano. Best for last - the lasagne is a masterpiece. Layers of ragu and bescamel create a magnificent combination of mouthfeel and complex flavors that combine into the best lasagne in the city. We had a large house salad as a last course. It was perfectly dressed with a simple vinaigrette made with high end, extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Simple and perfect, like all menu items at La Spiga. They sent us a dessert sampler, as it was Fathers day and we were clearly there for that reason. The Panna cotta with berries was excellent, vanilla, berries and creamy Panna cotta. The taramisu is perfect - I like it better than any other taramisu Ive ever had. There was also a tasty grappa cake that my kids didnt appreciate as my wife and I did. Run, dont walk to La Spiga. They have been doing the same thing the same way since they opened. As a veteran chef of 24 years I can tell you that you can trust that you will be very pleased with the authentic, simple fare and hospitality offered by La Spiga.

CH

Chelsea Snodgrass

I came here only once and it was on a voucher. The food was pretty good and the dining room is spacious and nice but there were several things that troubled me about our experience. 1. Upon arrival we did not receive a friendly greeting by the hostesses. We were taken to our seats without essentially a word. 2. Our table was in the worst possible location. I had a reservation and the dining room was almost completely empty but yet they took us all of the way to the back and seated us in a little corner by ourselves. Not by the front window, not by the large back window, not upstairs, but in a dark corner. 3. We were not told on the voucher that we had a very limited menu to order each course off of. We were given two options for all four courses and some of them I would have never really picked. 4. They did switch us tables after we asked them but then it took forever for anyone to come serve us. For our meal we had some very good salads, a sausage dish with rice that was good and enough to share but nothing that special, a very good homemade bolognese dish, and tiramisu, plus two glasses of wine. I thought the food was pretty good but because of the four reasons above I probably wont come back.

MA

Mark Guzman

How this place was so busy Ill never know. I cannot overstate how bad of an experience our party of 5 had here. We showed up and put our name in, the hostess was nice enough and the waiting area was able to accommodate with seating and keep us out of the cold... but then we sat at our table and ordered our drinks... ...and waited. Someone else brought them to us after quite a while, and apologized for the wait. Thats fine, things happen. We took a look at the menu and were ready to order... but again we waited for our waiter (irony?) He finally takes our order and I must say for the price, you really dont get much food. The only single dish that seemed large enough to satisfy was the lasagna I ate. I could only sympathize with my friends who stared longingly at my plate. When the meal ended we waited for our bill... waited some more... and before you knew it, we had been sitting in our booth for almost two hours, not including the time we spent in the waiting area. Id give it 1 star but the atmosphere was nice. TL;DR: We waited, waited, and waited some more for small portions and horrible wait staff.