Mama Milano’s Pizza Bar

For some reason, every time we try to stop for a quick bite in Old Town, we’re disappointed. Finally, tonight was our night! This restaurant was so cozy — really nice ambiance. The bartender was a little crass, which some people may find off putting, but it wasn’t a deal breaker for me. We ordered the combination bread and a Milano pizza and we really enjoyed both. It’s not out of this world, but we weren’t expecting it to be and we weren’t looking for that. For a casual quick bite, this was just the ticket. I will say that when I ordered coffee, things got weird. They said they didn’t serve coffee, then said they could serve espresso, then said their espresso machine was broken (but said it in an unsure way — I couldn’t tell if it was broken or if they didn’t feel like using it), and then finally offered me «a pot of coffee, but like its folgers, it’s not going to be special, you’re not getting Starbucks.» Very strange thing to say to a patron.

Excellent food, service and atmosphere. Found this place by accident while bar hopping in the area.
Had the meatballs and a pizza. Both were delicious. They gave us some of their Holiday Risotto. It was a little sweet and rich. Maybe best risotto I have ever tasted.
We sat at the bar. There are some tables in the small, cozy spot, but we enjoyed the conversations with the staff at the bar. Kitchen is right behind the bar so you can watch your food being prepared. Staff was friendly and helpful.
I will be back.

The service and food were outstanding! I sat at the bar looking over all the fresh food and thought I would order pizza. But lasagna was recommended to me and it was perfect! Everything is made in front of you and it smells delicious! Definitely worth your visit — 5 stars!

Very nice place to go w/​a couple of friends or solo. The seating area @ the bar has woven placemats cute Lil home touch and you can sit and watch your meal being prepared by the owner, they give you homemade garlic brushed bread. I ordered a side house salad very, very good to be a salad. And the lobster ravioli topped with alfredo sauce and breadcrumbs and then baked I enjoyed this also. A lot of Alfredo sauces are bland or just plain nasty but this was good no complaints.

Im from the east coast and this place is terrific for their pizzas and especially their meatballs if you want a change from a deep dish. Small intimate and Mama M takes great care of her patrons!

Wow. I love pizza so coming here was a no brainier but the pizza was just so delicious. Every flavour was pronounced. Everything was just perfect. I miss having good pizza with a reasonable price! It taste sooooo perfect. I was more surprised that there weren’t as many people. It was just me and a friend and the waiter. This place is a perfect on the go and in the perfect spot!

I had dinner with an old friend who just moved to Old Town and was looking for an intimate place for dinner on a Tuesday night. We stumbled upon this place and could not have been more pleased! The pizza was Amazing! As well as the service. Will definitely be back soon!

My fiancée and I live near by and just wanted to grab dinner in the neighborhood on a Friday night. We were recommended by a friend to try Mama Milano’s, and since it was a nice night we tried eating on the patio.
I’m from an Italian family, and while I understand that most restaurants can’t beat the old family recipes that are handmade pasta and sauces, if you’re going to charge $ 20 for an entrée it better be pretty good. I ordered the lobster ravioli, and my fiancée ordered pizza. The lobster ravioli came out and looked (and tasted) more like melted cheese soup with some dough in it. My fiancée’s pizza was better than the ravioli, but there are far better options on Wells for pizza for the amount that Milano’s is charging.
We wanted to like this place, we really did, but the service was poor on top of the subpar food. Our appetizer was really late, and instead of saying «the kitchen and/​or I forgot to place the order» (which it was clear that was the case), the server tried to blame it on «being busy». However, there was a group of 4 that sat down 10 minutes after us that got their full entrees before we got our appetizer.
Sorry Mama Milano’s, but I think you’re a subpar Italian restaurant that is charging far too much money for your subpar food. Better luck next time.

Overpriced & very mediocre quality. Size for your money isn’t a good value either. We got 2 pizzas & a salad for $ 50. I honestly can say that Little Caesars beats what I had. (Pepperoni). Crust was like dry cardboard. Pepperoni had ok flavor. Cheese was decent. My wife had the pizza Blanco. It was much better, but still had the cardboard crust though. The reason why the get the second star is because at 12:30pm on Saturday night they do deliver. I’d try other places first if you have the option.

I ordered carry out from Mama Milano bc of proximity and I wish I had gone a bit further to get more flavor for my $ 37.
1. Caesar salad… I should have gone for the spinach rolls :-/​it was a very basic house salad mix with barely Caesar ceasar dressing. I’ve had great ceasar salads at other places and I’ll stick to those in the future.
2. Quattro pizza, extra crispy crust request. They absolutely nailed the crispy crust request, even with a thin crust style that I consider on the thicker side of the thin category. The amount of cheese is great. However, I can’t help but desire more seasoning in place of the heavy Gorgonzola flavor that I’m left with at the end of every bite.
3. Tiramisu, tasty and a cute presentation in a small glass cup. I am of the sort who prefers a big square slab of tiramisu with a soaking layer of espresso dunked lady fingers, but the ratio of this dessert was nicely done.
Overall:
Pros + crispy crust + sweet sauce + amount of cheese topping + portion size
Cons — generic salad — under seasoned

Level setting:
1 we were regulars at Papa Milanos
2 i live in the neighborhood
3 place is cool and service is good
We each had a 10″ pizza, (which is more than two people need) The 1 ½ thick pepperoni was good but per Unilocal-​MEH IVE EXPERIENCED BETTER. The other pie was a Blanco – pesto/​pepper – per Unilocal-​MEH IVE EXPERIENCED BETTER. Had hoped it would be good – two stars. With the incredible number of alternatives in this town, I rarely retry less than perfect experiences. Sorry the place was just not that good

I really want to like this place, but every visit leaves us feeling a little off. Just blocks from where we live, we find ourselves at Mama Milano’s semi-​regularly. The food is pretty good, prices are reasonable.
However, the service is just awkward. Saturday night we walked in at 5:15. We were the only customers there. The server asked us where we wanted to sit and we asked if we could sit on the booth side. He said no, and put us at one of the small two people tables by the door. About 10 minutes later, another couple walks in and sits in the booth. They are later asked to move to the table right behind us leaving us cramped.
Eventually two other parties of two walked in and were apparently allowed to sit in the booths. I know Mama Milano’s is small, but you should make your current customers happy and comfortable whenever possible. We’ll be trying Dinotto’s next time we want Italian food.

Like many others, we were persuaded by Unilocal reviews to check out Mama Milano’s on a Saturday night. We were seated right away in the outside area, where we had plenty of people watching opportunity since Pour House was right next door.
We started off with the house salad and the spinach bread. House salad was delicious and very flavorful — it seemed like something you could reasonably make at home, except inevitably yours would not taste nearly as good. The spinach bread can more accurately be described as «delicious hot cheese wrapped in bread that’s garnished in spinach and dipped in marinara» — not as healthy as the name implies, but extremely tasty nevertheless.
We shared a margherita pizza as our entrée. The pizza was satisfyingly crispy (you could hear and audible «crunch» with every bite… mmm). The crust was also very thin, which I personally don’t like as much (I feel like I’m just eating cardboard by the end), so next time I’ll check out the options for a thicker crust.
Service was good and prices fair. Dinner for two without drinks cost about $ 40 with plenty to take leftover. I’m looking forward to coming back and indulging in the lobster ravioli next time.

Came here on a Friday night after drinking WAAAYYY too much wine, but I’m reasonably sure I can still remember it well enough to give a good review. Of course, two days later my husband said something about pizza, and I said «when did I last have pizza??» — «two days ago dear.» Ah yes.
So if you still trust this review, trust that you should get the arugula pizza and the pepperoni. All the crusts were very good — oven fired, very slightly charred in a good way. Thin but chewy. The arugula was my favorite topping, the pepperoni was very cheesy and the pepperoni itself was great.
We also ordered the antipasto salad and the house salad — they tasted virtually the same to me except one had egg. They were NOT light, veggie heavy salads — more like chopped salads.
Service was friendly and helpful. It is tiny. I’d go back sober :)

Came here bc of Unilocal reviews and they were spot on. I do have to admit that upon walking in, I was a little unimpressed. The restaurant seemed small and not a lot of patrons compared to the booming number of people at Old Town Pour House (we walked in to the PourHouse on accident at first thinking it was one whole restaurant).
Staff was incredibly friendly and the pizza is SO good here. I love the crunchy thin crust. The pizza wasn’t too salty or greasy as other places are. We ordered the pancetta and egg pizza and spinach bread appetizer which was recommended by a lot of Unilocalers. The spinach bread appetizer is definitely not appetizer portioned. It’s so big and we ended up having to take home leftovers.
I will have to come back to try other items on the menu.

I came here on a Saturday with a friend for a late lunch/​early dinner (3pm ish). We were able to choose a place to sit right away.
Pancetta and Egg ($ 15.95) — pizza with mozzarella, Italian ham, and eggs. Tasty and flavorful. I especially enjoyed the crunchyness of the crust. nomnomnom. The portion is big so one pizza can be shared amongst 2 – 4 ppl (varies depending on whether or not you are a big eater).
Mama Milano’s Famous Spinach Bread Appetizer (~$ 11) — spinach and mozarella cheese baked in light dough served with marinara sauce. I loved how the bread was soo cheesy! This comes with 4 huge pieces and probably can be ordered for an meal because it is soo filling.
*Recommended**
Atmosphere — casual
Customer Service — ok
I would come here again to get some Spinach Bread or just to carb load prior to a race!
Parking — street parking, Red Line (Clark & Lasalle stop, north exit).you’ll need to walk a little…

Mama Milano’s was recommended by a friend, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the recommendation. The service here is impeccable. Definitely try the sausage and pepper bread or the spinach bread, as well as the house salad. Pizzas are also a must! We also ordered a side of meatballs, which were some of the best I’ve had in quite some time. Everything here is authentic and made with love.
The restaurant is just off of the main path of the sidewalk, providing it with a cozy, almost secret-​like atmosphere. It is very small, so I’d recommend against coming here with a large group.

Was referred by a friend who lives in the neighborhood and it is a very friendly little place. The service was very nice and I ordered an eggplant sandwich and my friend ordered the thin crusted pizza which I think looked better. My sandwich was good but had only 2 patties of eggplant and had more breading than sauce… just a tad more sauce would have been helpful. It had lots of good gooey mozzarella though.
I didn’t drink but there was a full bar that I noted. I ordered some dessert but that was just average fare so I wouldn’t order desserts the next time.

My husband and I stopped here for a late lunch while running errands last weekend. Our server, George, was very helpful when suggesting appetizers and menu items. And the food was delicious! We had the sausage and roasted pepper appetizer and a margarita pizza along with a couple of glasses of wine.
We were even more impressed when towards the end of our stay a *very* large group came through the door taking nearly every empty table in the establishment. It was a slower afternoon so I’m sure that this could not have been expected. However, George handled it with style and ease.
We will definitely be back!

This place was such a delight! Cute and hidden, but cozy with great food and wine
House Salad — delicious! Loved the black olives and roasted red peppers
Veggie pizza — also tasty. Loved the eggplant. And don’t be shy in adding the table giardiniera to spice this up
Meatball sub — Tasty pork meatball. Ask for a side of sauce because you’ll definitely need/​want it
Just moved to Old Town and I’ll know we’ll be back!