Ristorante LIDI

I had higher hopes for this dining experience. We went on Valentines Day with another couple and it definitely was more of a family atmosphere– bright lights and lots of kids. The service was prompt and courteous but there was a definite lack of knowledge when it came to the wine list. When it comes to wine, don’t guess, ask someone else.
The food started out fine– lightly breaded calamari as a starter. The soup and salad course is where it started going wrong. The soup had to be returned because it wasn’t hot and there was a lack of basil in the caprese salad. It was also at this time that we noticed 2 of the 4 people at the table had dirty silverware that had to be replaced.
The entrees fared a little better. My chicken piccata was exactly what I wanted though a little heavy on the oil. The chicken was light and tender. The fish dish was determined tasty but the other pasta dish came out lukewarm. The buffalo short ribs were flavorful but overly chewy.
If I could give the super awesome piano player a half star, I totally would.
In short I would say that it’s a little overpriced for a family Italian restaurant and a little lackluster for a nicer dining experience.

First visit to Lidi on Daniel Island.
Service was very good and the food was tasty.
I had to sent back soup as it wasn’t hot enough, but it was replaced and was delicious.
Every thing was tasty, and we enjoyed the genleman playing the piano.

For Charleston’s competitive food selection, 3 stars is as much as I can do. Atmosphere was a bit tacky and did not flow well. Bar area was kinda nice. The lighting of the place mixed with the kitchen light was rough.
We had the Chicken Parm was like any that I have had. So, nothing fancy.
Let me say for the price of food does not match the taste or décor.
Advise from a random probably not qualified person is «clean» up the décor. White table cloths, the distressed wood make a nice white and hid some of that kitchen. Most of the guys back there were kinda scary looking.

They deliver. That’s basically the best thing about them. The food is super mediocre and over priced. We only eat here when we are too lazy to cook and want something delivered. If your looking for good food on DI go to Sermet’s.

Overpriced for bad food… We’ve tried it more than once, just to give it a fair chance and each time we are disappointed. Just don’t go. Hopefully this spot can figure it out since it takes up a restaurant location on Daniel Island.

Date Night led us here, since we had tickets to Third Eye Blind on Daniel Island. Given that I work on DI during the week, it’s always a struggle to settle on something that you feel like you haven’t had a million times before. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Wasabi, but a girl can only eat sushi so much).
I’ve been craving Italian, and after reading the Unilocal reviews for this place, I thought I’d give it a whirl– bonus points for online reservations IN the Unilocal app!
Arrived to a pleasantly full setting. Luckily we made reservations because as we were being seated, the hostess was told not to seat anyone else who didn’t have one. (Yay for being a planner!)
Now to the food– we started with the Arancini for a starter, which is Italian for «Heaven in Your Mouth». Seriously, these fried balls of rice, various meats and red sauce were foodgasmic. I had read several reviews about the eggplant parm, so I decided to order something new and go with that. Husband was feeling fancy as well, so he ordered the veal. Now, don’t get me wrong– for a first-​timer with eggplant, it was yummy. Husband said «If you are someone who doesn’t want meat, this is a great option.» But had I known how delicious that veal would be, I would have gotten it myself. Paired with a medley of fresh veggies, he clearly had the better meal. My raving was so over the top, the gentleman next to us decided to order it as well.
I’d definitely go back again– you guessed it, for the veal.

I really expected more… the reviews have been good but the food was just ok and the server was clearly too busy and not focussed on our table. Ordered the calamari as a starter and a bottle of Chardonnay while we looked at the menu. The calamari came out within 3 minutes and tasted like it had been sitting under a heat lamp. 10 minutes later the wine showed up and after opening it, the server poured it and left the bottle on the table to rush off again (I assumed to get a bucket/​ice to keep the wine cool. Nope!). We both ordered pasta dishes from the menu and both came out almost cool to the touch. Pasta itself was flavorless (think Muellers) and the sauces didn’t do much to help the flavor. Our server never once stopped by to ask about the entrees, to pour more wine, etc.
In summary: go to Olive Garden, save 40%, and get better food & service.

Real deal italian on DI. Nice complimentary valet. Casual dress ok and a great open kitchen atmosphere. Amazing baked stuffed mushroom appetizer coupled with the best lasagna I have ever had made for a great meal. Very expensive but worth it.

The place you want to love. Daniel Island needs this place. I took my family here tonight and had an enjoyable meal with a few exceptions. Our server certainly knew her stuff right down to the olive oil. I was disappointed that she didn’t question when the kitchen sent out a spaghetti bolenese and it clearly didn’t have a drop of tomato sauce in it. It was basically a bowl of spaghetti with ground beef. not cool but the rest of the entrees were very good Clams ragu was excellent although you would expect it to be served with pasta well yes but they don’t tell you that will be an extra $ 4. Their Pesto dish was a red sauce and not green? Maybe it’s a new way of cooking Italian. The chicken parm is always good and the scallops with coccus was a hit. Try it especially if you are a local. Parking is very easy with a valet.

Pros: Server was nice, space between tables, starter bread was warm. My tastebuds were able to take the night off.
Cons: Everything else. Overpriced and no taste. How do you mess up pasta dishes? Less than mediocre and costly. So far to go. Should just scrap current menu and hire a former sous chef from any other restaurant in the area and start over. Décor looked like a fake 90sTV set of a generic Italian restaurant.
Will try again it they overhaul and will gladly remove this review.

We decided to stop here for lunch on the way to Pawleys Island since a traffic jam took us off the road and it was either this place or another craft beer/​food place down the street. We were starving and had already walked to this place so we decided to try it out. It seems like they are just starting to serve lunch, as an advertisement led me to believe, and they had a pretty limited lunch menu. I had an Italian cold cut sandwich, which was ok, but the peppers had too much oil and vinegar on them and rather than compliment the meat, it overpowered it. My fiancé had the spaghetti and meatball, which was actually pretty decent. Maybe South Carolina water is really different from Boston, but their water tasted like pond water.
Aside from the food, what is with the décor? In one room it looks like it’s trying to be a Tuscany-​like Italian place, another room like a cafeteria, and the bar room like a tavern. It doesn’t really seem to have a central theme, so it just kind of leaves you confused.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad meal, but if I’m in the area again, I’m going to try the craft beer/​food place down the street before coming back here.

I’m sorry to give this place two stars, but let me start by saying this is exclusively based on my lunch experience and I went the first week they started serving lunch. I’m hopeful they’ll make some serious changes to their lunches as a result of feedback.
I’ll start with the good part of the visit — the food was excellent! It was some of the best Italian food I’ve tasted. I ordered spaghetti and meatball (as in a singular meatball) and my friend ordered the chicken penne. Both were very good and ingredients seemed to be very high quality.
The service was good, but not great. We expressed interest in sitting in a booth and the hostess said we weren’t allowed to. I sat with an empty glass for awhile and when we nicely brought up some of the criticisms we had to our server, he didn’t seem to catch on that we weren’t happy.
The portions are as small as a regular size frozen meal. It was shocking. $ 11 for a small bowl of pasta and one meatball. We asked about bread and were told that it only comes with dinner. Seriously? You’re serving pasta and sauce and you’re not even giving people bread to dip into the sauce? We both ate every single crumb of food (minus the leftover sauce, since licking our bowls would’ve been rude) and we left unsatisfied. Neither of us are huge eaters, but the portions were just that small.
Now the prices — Lidi needs to realize that their demographic is different for the lunch crowd than it is for the dinner crowd. Most of us who eat lunch on Daniel Island are the workers — the people who don’t live in big houses on golf courses. With Blackbaud, Benefitfocus and various other firms on the island, they could be a big draw for lunch, but they’re targeting the wrong audience.
With my drink, which I guess was around $ 2, plus taxes, my bill was $ 14 and change. With a $ 3 tip, my lunch ended up costing $ 17 and change. That’s ridiculously high for lunch for one person.
Until Lidi adds bread to the lunches, serves bigger portions, brings their prices down a bit, and gives people a booth if it’s empty and we ask for it, I won’t be back.

Great Italian food. Very fresh, wholesome ingredients. I am a huge meatball critic, as I think my homemade ones are the very best and every other meatball I’ve tried has not compared. However, I was very pleasantly surprised at their delicious meatballs! They’re a MUST try! The olive oil they serve with their crusty, warm bread is specially made just for Ristorante LIDI. My husband has the eggplant parm and he said it’s the best he’s had. You must try this place!

We have been looking forward to our 1^st visit to Restorante LIDI (Little Italy Daniel Island).
First off, the service was really attentive and the server knew the menu like the back of her hand. She made a few suggestions and we ended up choosing a couple of them. We ordered the eggplant appetizer that was quite delicious and a definite recommend. We also tried the sausage stuffed mushrooms. These were decent but very under seasoned. My wife decided on the Bolognese for her entrée and I went with the mussels. She was somewhat underwhelmed with her choice and I took a small taste and would agree. I however really enjoyed the Mussels, they were cooked perfectly and the broth was fantastic. I will say that I was slightly let down by the small size. It seemed like more of a lunch portion.
All in all, a pretty good visit to R-​LIDI. We may go again, but if so we would take the kids. It seems to lend itself to more of a family atmosphere, rather than a date night destination. Although I probably felt like this only because it’s so darn bright inside.
In fact, if I had a single recommendation for LIDI it would be to turn the lights down a little bit. At least in the later dinner time hours.
Enjoy.

Fantasic! The service was excellent and the food is some of the best I’ve had in a long time. I live on Daniel Island and this is easily our best restaurant in town.
I haven’t had a bad experience here or a bar meal. I encourage anyone to dine here. It’s not the most kid friendly spot so I would leave them with a sitter.
Overall, my go to place for higher end Italian.

Pricy, very. Food is good but not for the price. Service is a little slow, and not as attentive as it should be. Now that I’ve said all that, not a bad place. Had a small issue but was taken care of by server and apologies by the manager. If you’re looking for Lili Italy like NYC, not here, but worth the time to try this place. Give it a shot, they try harder to please, and do.
Frank G

My family and I have enjoyed ourselves every time we come. The owner has personally introduced himself, which made our experience special. The staff are always happily willing to cater to any requests or special orders we have. The food itself is prepared exactly as deliciously described in the well balanced Italian menu. The décor is pleasantly charming with heavy accents of classic Italian red. I must go back to the staff as well, who are happy, helpful, attentive, and all around fantastic. If you find yourself looking for dinner on the island do yourself a favor and take a look at this Little Italy on Daniel Island.

The service is great. Slow, but great. The 1 star belongs only to our waiter. Everything about this place is pretentious. Grab hold of yourself, this is going to get ugly.
The cliffs: Don’t eat here.
First of all, I’m honestly concerned about the sanitation practices here. Our table was right in front of the open kitchen and food staging area. I watched for 2 hours as what I assumed to be the manager walked around the restaurant, shaking hands, dealing with menus, touching the register, going in and out of doors. He never washed his hands. This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, except this is the man who garnishes the plates before they are brought to your table. I watched time after time as he came over and seasoned plates with bare hands. Littering and contaminating every single plate that left the kitchen with the filth of his hands. Disgusting. On top of that, he was «generous» with his interpretation of seasoning. I watched him pour oil on my plate. My pork chop was FLOATING in olive oil. It contaminated my baked potatoes and just ruined the whole meal (what little of it there was for $ 27).
Adding (completing?) to the overall poor experience was the food. I paid for the description of a «thick cut bone in pork chop.» What came to me was a ½ in thick hunk of pork chop with a sliver of bone in it. It was dumped on a pile of mashed potatoes that lacked any sort of flavor beyond the aforementioned olive oil. The theme continued on the all of our dishes. Dripping in decorative oil and random greenery on all 3 entrees. The baked chicken was dry and lacking. I didn’t try it, but a large portion of it left with the clearing of the table and we didn’t ask for a to-​go box. The chicken Parmesan was just plain bad. They took a chicken breast and flattened it to the size of a pancake. It was more bread than chicken. The pasta was obviously under cooked and the sauce was flavorless. I had a bowl of chicken soup that was so salty that I seriously think a mistake was made and someone spilled something into the cooking pot.
What a waste. I seriously felt angry when my bill for 3 people totaling over $ 128 arrived at the table. I knew I had just been taken advantage of to the point of wanting to not pay and just walk out. Our server was the only thing that kept me from doing just that. The guy was really cool, so I didn’t want to screw him.
WAY overpriced. A significantly better meal could be had for ¹⁄₃ the price at Carrabba’s. Not kidding at all.

What an amazing place to DINE! We arrived on the island the day after our wedding and were treated like royalty!!! Our server, Travis, was very helpful in choosing the best dishes and wine pairings.
We hope to end our week of celebrating with them as well.
Go hungry, leave happy.
Ps. Love the free valet right out front!!!

I went on a Sunday, excited to try LIDI out for the first time. While I didn’t know that there was a separate menu, I was quickly and politely educated on the family style operations by the host that guided me to my seat.
Waiting on my dinner guests, I decided to start with a glass of wine. Perusing the drinks menu, I was a little non-​decisive. Travis, the bartender, recommended a Super Tuscan that truly nailed what I was in the mood for. Perfectly balanced to compliment the also perfectly balanced focaccia and exclusive EVO blend; the focaccia was not too salty and the EVO wasn’t too peppery.
«Family style» certainly became apparent as I met «new friends» who raved about dishes they’d had previously and the friends they had met there. The bartender brought me over the rest of the menus from the week, explained how the various dishes were prepared, invited me back to experience the weekdays, and my «new» friends and I made a tentative date to rejoin as family on a weekday.
(I’m a huge fan of antipasto plates — they way that they have theirs offered — so smart — pick what you want or take it all — this will be my every dinner opening act.)
Not only was I greeted warmly from the time I walked in, but the team was actually consistent through my entire two hour experience. I met the manager, Scott, and other members of the staff smiled and greeted me (and my new buddies — obviously regulars) with actual enthusiasm.
I’m very particular about service and food, as there are so many choices in the city; I opt not to offer all of the potentially negative points that I find in my travels, as it would make me seem overly picky. (Which may actually be the case) I try out spaces well before I invite clients or other family members, as they know how I can over-​analyze an experience into being maybe not-​so-​fun. In those cases, I just don’t return.
In this experience, however, the team nailed my needs and exceeded my expectations. I will be comfortable bringing clients there as I continue to enjoy what LIDI has seemed to be offering… Knowledgeable service; good, comfortable company; fresh, tasty food that isn’t overpriced, over salted and is allowed to stand on its own.
Well done, LIDI, I look forward to joining the family again soon.
Keep up the good work. (please)