Cortese Restaurant

Used to love this place. Great food. Tried the bolognese dish which turned out to have pine nut pesto in it which was not listed on the menu. Had a severe anaphylactic reaction to this dish. A normal business probably would have apologized and considered listing a food that is a common and very serious allergy on their menu but upon notifying the restaurant of my severe allergic reaction, I was asked by the hostess if I had asked ahead of time whether there were nuts in the dish. No, in fact I hadn’t because normally a restaurant would list pesto as an ingredient in a dish. Terrible customer service. Sad to say I will not be back to cortese after 20 years of being a customer

The entrees are pricey but the sandwiches and pizzas seemed reasonable. The service was super slow. The meals took a while. The food was overly plentiful and enough for another day or two.
The bread was freshly cooked and the crust was not too crispy so it was perfect.
The chicken bow tie soup was good but slightly salty.
The gnocchi comes with marinara sauce which was over abundance. It was ok.
The Tortellini primavera had Alfredo was on the bland side. The veggies were good.
The Carmel Apple pie was interesting. It really had no crust but a Carmel layer. I loved it. Hubby hated it so I guess you have to love Carmel to like the pie.

Server: Dayne
We were there early last night. We were seated immediately. The initial drink order was timely, and accurate. The followup water services was also timely. For those of us who ordered drinks other than water, the service sucked. The non-​water drinks were not tracked, queried, or refilled. We had to flag down someone and specifically ask for a refill. Where do servers go when they disappear for 10 – 15 minutes at a time?
The dinner order was finally taken (it seemed to take forever). The kitchen was slow even though it hadn’t filled up yet. The food arrived and tasted great. The presentation on one of the meals wasn’t that good, but it didn’t affect the taste. I ended up swapping with my wife because she wasn’t aware which sauce was coming with hers, and she didn’t want to get a migraine.
We had one desert, although it was a close call because of the speed of service whether I wanted to make the time commitment to place the order, and wait for it to come.
SUMMARY —
SERVICE — 4 (1. 10)
FOOD QUALITY — 8 (1. 10)
SPEED — 3 (1. 10)
15 out of a possible 30 points.

Their food is soooooo good. There is an overabundance of Italian restaurants in the Binghamton area (and I’ve been to almost all of them). I feel confident saying this one is the best. I’ve gone in the summer, spring, winter, and fall. During restaurant week and regular weeks. Every visit has been great. Everything is great. The food, the ambiance, the waitstaff, I took my brother and father here when they came to visit to me once and my dad almost ordered another dish just to take home with him because he was so impressed with the quality.

Classic American fine dining.
I’ve never had a bad meal here. Best restaurant in the area IMO. I’ve had cheesesteaks, pizza, and burgers for lunch, and steaks, chops and prime rib for dinner, and never been disappointed. The real star here is the prime rib, its consistently perfect, and for a real treat get it «Milanese» style floating in a sea of olive oil, garlic, and oregano. You want to be spoiled, this is the quickest way to achieve it.
And I searched high and low to find a better pizza in town, but I couldn’t find anything to top a Cortese pie. They are phenomenal. The pizzas come in 2 sizes, an 8 slice and a 4 slice which is perfect for one person for lunch, and you wont have to wait more that 20 minutes before you can dive in. Binghamton is blessed to have Cortese, the variety and quality just cant be beat.

I can’t believe I’ve been eating at Cortese’s for 50 years! pizza is the best– in fact I can’t drive back to my home outside Philly without bringing some back! It’s a tradition and they never disappoint

Helpings are huge. Crumbly blue cheese dressing was great — try it! Chicken Parm, Eggplant Parm, Alfredo’s we’re all yummy. Bread and oil were meh…

Went here this weekend for a date. We went later in the evening so we had no trouble getting a seat immediately. The waitress was very rushed and not the most friendly, but the food was incredible. We got the chicken palmero and the chicken saltambocca. The palmero was incredible, one of the best sauces I’ve ever tasted. We split a tiramisu for dessert and that was also great. If it weren’t for the wait staff it would be 5 stars.

This place is a garlic lovers dream. Everything is bursting with robust flavor of garlic! Service is excellent. Cortese has demonstrated consistent, solid Italian dishes for the Binghamton for many years and is a southern tier favorite. I would recommend Cortese for any Italian lover. On the flip side if your not a fan of garlic you will absolutely hate Cortese, because I’ve never seen more minced garlic used in a marinara any place elese in my life! The Italian dressing is clearly house made and has large chucks of garlic and is very different from any other Italian dressing I’ve ever had its very flavorful. like the booths in Cortese they have a private feel to them, I always request a booth when dining in & they always are happy to accommodate the request. Everytime I go to Cortese I leave full and happy. Prices are affordable and portions are just right, so why not stop by Cortese for dine in or take out anytime ;)

Had lunch at Cortese Restaurant for an early Mother’s Day celebration yesterday afternoon. We had a party of around 20 people. The restaurant split us up between two tables. It would have been much nicer to all sit together. (Probably easier on our waitress, too.)
There was a variety of food ordered by the party… from steaks and salads, to lasagna and burgers. It all looked delicious and no one had complaints about their food. I ordered the Shells Vincenzo which was shell macaroni, fresh ricotta cheese, and meat-​sauce, all baked in a dish. Very good! Our waitress recommended getting the full portion since the half size was kind of small. So I went for it… and exited with leftovers. Next time I will try a steak with the Milanese Style sauce. Yes, it was worth returning here!
Service was okay for a large party.
Overall I enjoyed the meal.

Overpriced and over rated compared to the other restaurants in this area especially in the Italian food area but still very good!

My mom is from Binghamton so everytime we visit we make sure to stop at Cortese. The pizza is excellent – some of the best sicilian I’ve ever had – and the service is always friendly. And make sure to visit my uncle’s appliance store right across the street when you’re done eating for a great deal on a TV or a washing machine!

Haven’t had dinner here yet but the bar is great! It’s one of the few places in Binghamton that has a large variety of all of the spirits I enjoy. They have a great bourbon variety, all the liqueurs I enjoy and the bar staff is by far one of the friendliest and knowledgable that I’ve come across since I moved. Wednesday is ladies night so looking forward to getting a group of gals together and also trying the cuisine!

I use to come here all the time but the last few weren’t pleasing, the Tuscanna bread was so slopped together we had to peel the paper napkin off of the bottom. the caesar dressing was way to fishy I told them I wasn’t happy and they gave me a bowl of romaine w parm cheese and a choice of raspberry vinaigrette or peppercorn and I just couldn’t enjoy it they didn’t comp the dish or offer to. my mother was w me and also wasn’t pleased with her dish. And to top it off the mini cannoli was stale. Don’t plan on going back.

Classic local Italian restaurant. Many people swear by the place, but to me it is only average, at least for the price. The dinning room tables are crowded together (ask for a booth in the bar for maximum comfort). The food, while fine, is a little expensive for the quality. They have a couple of overpriced craft beers in the bottle.

i’ve grew up eating pizzas from this place, yet i never went there to eat in house, so i figured since it’s now restaurant week it would be a good time to give it a shot. i walk in after the normal lunch hours and the place is still half full, which is a good sign. the place looks really nice too. i wait at the front desk for a few minutes though before i was seated. after that the service was pretty good, the waitress kept checking up on me and the busboy kept filling my water as i emptied each glass (i always said thank you and he never responded though). anyways, the restaurant week lunch menu looked pretty good. i ended up choosing the least italian thing on the menu though, the cheesesteak. they mentioned on the menu that they use a good quality roast beef. seeing as how most cheesesteaks are made with shaved rib eye i figured i’d give this one a shot. the first course i got was the garlic bread. it had a good flavor but was burnt in a few spots. then the sandwich comes out. big piece of bread with barely any meat on it. now this whole 3 course lunch was $ 12, and the sandwich itself on the normal menu is $ 10, so i’m wondering if they put on less meat for the restaurant week crowd. i got peppers and onions on mine and while the onions were good, the peppers were cut too big and overpowered the whole sandwich. the meat was ok but i’d rather have a rib eye steak sandwich. the meat also didn’t seem to be seasoned at all. for the dessert i got the brownie ala mode. the portion was unbelievably small. the brownie was good but it was just a small square that was maybe an inch and a half long on each side, and the ice cream was a small scoop too, all of which was drizzled with a generic chocolate syrup, they definitely didn’t put much effort into this dessert.
all that aside, i was still ready to go back and try another one of their restaurant week specials, until i got home and sampled some of my to go order. i took home an order of their homemade spaghetti with 2 meatballs that came with a salad. the salad was pretty low quality and the italian dressing wasn’t very good, a bit too vinegary, but who really cares about a side salad anyways? i tried a bite of one of the meatballs and it was dried out and didn’t have much flavor to it, and paired with the pasta sauce it was too much on the salty side for my tastes. then i took a bite of the homemade pasta. awful. just awful. soggy with no redeeming qualities to it. it’s all sitting in my fridge right now and i have no idea if i even want to try to eat the rest of it.
as for the pizza, the crust and cheese are awesome, they seem pretty unique. growing up i never liked the sauce because it was too chunky, but now that i’m older i don’t mind it as much. they have a few specialty pizzas i’d like to try as well, and i will definitely go back for pizzas but i probably won’t eat in house again unless someone else is going to foot the bill.

Talk about catering to the local’s tastes. The food here was not terrible but it was on the saltier side of things. I enjoy my fair share of salted foods but I have never felt so thirsty from eating eggplant.
The service is great and they reserved a table for our party of 13 people. Even though only about ²⁄₃ of us showed up. The kitchen also stayed open while we waited for the rest of our party. We sat down right away and were served glasses of water. The lady provided me with a glass of room temperature water, which is picky but I was grateful for. Even though the cups were kind of small for the amount that I drink.
The unlimited bread was a huge perk and I loved that they provided olive oil with the bread~
Our party came during restaurant week and it seemed pretty empty for a Wednesday night. But I realized that the restaurant is much larger than I had perceived it to be. Great ambiance and kind of romantic. I would recommend it for someone who likes Italian food and wants to impress a date.
The first dish was a salad and garlic bread. Then came the salmon. It was delicious. I thought it was weird that they put honey mustard on top of it but it was still good. It came with a side of eggplant. The eggplant would have tasted delicious if it wasn’t drowned in tomato sauce. The eggplant had so much salt in it, It could have been pickled.
For desert I had the tiramisu. I can’t complain about the dessert, it’s always good.
Overall the food was good. Service was good. I would recommend this place to people looking for some Italian food in Binghamton.

Love their half portion sizes. The gnocchi is my favorite by far. Its the perfect amount of food. Not to mention, the salad and bread that come with it! You can have a meal for two for around $ 20. Food is always delish, and the place is always packed.

Great pizza, slow service
First of all, get the pizza here. If you’re not from the Binghamton area you may be surprised by this rectangular hybrid pizza. The dough is cooked to perfection and the cheese and sauce are delicious.
Other than the pizza, there is really is nothing noteworthy here. They do offer a lot of good food on the menu but there is nothing that stands out at a clear winner.
You may also be shocked by how high the prices are. In my opinion if I’m spending $ 20+ per person in Binghamton then I should be getting a near fine dining experience. This is nowhere near a fine dining experience.
It’s also disappointing that the service here is regularly very slow. We had to wait about 10 minutes to get our orders taken on my most recent visit. Most visits have similar waits. This is not a place to go when you are in a hurry.
My suggestion is to order the pizza for take out and skip the dining room.

I’m strictly reviewing the pizza. Some of my friends who grew up in Binghamton swear by their other dishes, me I’m a Little Venice man. However, the pizza at Cortese is off the charts insanely awesome. The crust is something that only Cortese has perfected. Combined with the cheese and sauce it’s heaven on earth.
Binghamton is big on its pizza (also called Hot Pies locally) and lines are drawn between Cortese, Brozzetti, Grande, Nirchi, and the list goes on. Every time I go back to Binghamton for a visit I bring back 3 pizzas in my carry on when I return to California. It’s that freaking delicious.
I always pick up the pizzas in the back of the restaurant. That area is strictly for takeout. It’s a great scene to see the goings on in the kitchen.
Try the pizza, I’m partial to the fresh sausage or mushroom Hot Pie and be prepared to have a incredible experience of the tastebuds. My favorite pizza in the world!