Dominic’s Italian Restaurant

I have a new favorite restaurant in El Paso. My husband and I tried it on the recommendation of a friend and it was so delicious. We had the all you can eat lunch pasta, salad, and soup as well as the veal parmesan. I ordered angel hair pasta with pesto and it was so fresh and delicious. I think it is the best I have ever had. The portion size of the veal parmesan was huge and it was so flavorful. Our toddler loved the fresh strawberries from the salad bar and homemade chicken noodle soup. Our server was also very attentive, treated us very nicely, and even told us about events the restaurant has each week. What a great experience! This is our new favorite spot.

The cuisine is a fusion of Italian and Mexican. The ravioli was more like an empanada, crisp crust instead of pasta. The lasagna had nicely cooked green chilies, lots of flavor without much heat. The flavors were not bad after forgetting it was supposed to be Italian. The chicken and vegetable soup was more a form of chili. The waitress was great, smiling and attentive. My food came fairly quickly.

My precious experience was mediocre. The food was fine. Nothing wow. At least better than Olive Garden. Today, I called for a pick up order. Asked how much my total would be and was rudely told «I don’t know. I don’t have it. You’ll know it when you get here»
What kind of business is this? Haha. This was a complete joke. This isn’t the first time the employees speak so rudely when I try to order. Last time I picked up dinner, they forgot an entrée. Cmon

The staff asked us for an honest critique of the restaurant at meal’s end. i repeat the comments we offered to them: the Antipasti we shared would have benefited from the use of real, honest tomatoes to replace the gassed pallid and tasteless ones in the salad. Iceberg lettuce should have been replaced with more interesting greens. And the vinaigrette neither tasted nor smelled of good olive oil… our guess would be that it was made with canola or another tasteless vegetable oil. We also ordere the mixed seafood pasta in a lemon cream sauce. The seafood was readily identifiable as frozen. Probably this accounts for the bland quality of the sauce… the water retention in the frozen shellfish diluting the sauce. Dessert was chocolate cake and it was… not bad but the cut edge of a cake needs to be preserved from drying out and the chef hasn’t figured that one out yet. Service: the staff is untrained and mistakes a loud presence for good service. Quality service is the result of training and comprehension (at the management level down) of what good service is about. For starts, it should be dignified and quiet.

So from reading all the reviews I think they may have changed hands/​staff. Our experience going twice now has been much less than par!
Pros: Central location, good space for groups, okay décor.
Cons: Poor service and food! Both times we’ve been for military functions, you’re supposed to step up your game for banquets not lower it.
Service — SLOW, lack of communication, poorly organized for groups. The waitstaff couldn’t remember who had what. There was a hair in hubby’s entrée and we were still charged for it! A 20% gratuity was automatically added because of it being a group function even though each family paid for themselves, and trust me it was NOT deserved.
Menu — limited because of being a function, fine, but when it says «Dinner includes house salad and your choice of one entrée» then it is implied that the salad and entrée are priced together and all entrees are the same price. NOPE. The salad is extra and the entrees are different prices even though it was not listed on the menu that way. That’s just not good customer service anywhere!
Food — aside from the aforementioned hair, the Alfredo was a white sauce with very little cheese, my shrimp scampi was overcooked and chewy and hey for $ 15.00 I expect more than 6 medium size shrimp in barely seasoned sauce. Chicken Parm was very thin breaded cutlet more like a schnitzel. Greek Salad had tiny tiny bits of feta and no real other veggies. All of it could stand some salt.
Save yourself the trouble and go elsewhere. If we have another function here we won’t be eating.

They have an amazing staff, good food at a decent price looking forward to going back.

I came here for an event. Like other Unilocalers have said… They are terrible with groups. Well, imagine when half the restaurant is reserved. It was bad. Our waitress had never waitressed before (she immediately told us this), she kept getting orders wrong and didn’t know what draught beer was (I will save you the question, they don’t have draught). She also brought me a lemon for my shiner boch. Just strange. My food came out cold and way under seasoned. At the end of the meal, we had to ask for a box 3 times and she didn’t box it up unlike the servers around me. Then we were forced to tip 20% despite this horrendous service. Now, if you’re going to force a tip out of people… You should put quality staff on the floor. I don’t blame the server for this, I blame management. Most expensive dinner I’ve had in a long time and the service and quality just weren’t there. Since we were there for an event we just paid the bill and left. But I will definitely not be back.

Me and my husband wanted to try something new tonight and we made the right decision! We loved everything about this place service was great food was awesome! We had bruschetta, got some free bread and olive oil afterwards and he had chicken Parmesan and I had seafood pasta. Everything tasted really good. The manager came to our table, we had a nice little conversation with him. They also have their own chocolate desert bar with truffles amazing looking cake and chocolate covered fruit ! Super yummy ! Check it out

This review is mostly due to the lousy service we received since we never got our food. We decided to try this place during the lunch hour. The place is nicely decorated, actually smelled «old» but it was not too bad.
We were seated promptly and given menus. The dishes sounded exquisite! We ordered and got drinks to wait for our food. (By the way they were out of straws) About 45 minutes later, the server came out to tell us that our food would be right out, but that they were out of the pasta my co-​worker ordered. She changed her order and again we waited.
30 minutes later a different server came by and was shocked we hadn’t gotten our food.
At this point we decided to leave. Not only was the food taking a long time, but our waiter did not seem concerned at all. He blamed the kitchen and said the management sucked.
We left and stopped to get a burger on the way back to work

Great place. It was empty but probably because it was a Tuesday. Was greeted by owner/​chef with a smile and a handshake and seated immediately. My lovely server, who’s name I unfortunately forget, was sweet, friendly, attentive and very pretty. I didn’t order an appetizer or salad because they seemed pedestrian and expensive. I went there for Calamari sautéed in red hot sauce over linguini which I had seen on their menu here on Unilocal and is my favorite dish. They didn’t disappoint. It was delicious and a large portion. At $ 15.95 priced average for anywhere. That, with the garlic toast dipped in spiced olive oil they served, was plenty for this big truck driver so I passed on the very tempting looking desserts. The décor could use an update and the appetizer menu some imagination, but other than that was great and I was definitely satisfied. If you’re so inclined, they have a full bar and sports on the big screens. Will definitely return next time I’m in El Paso.

Everything was awesome!!!(as the lego movie suggests)! Server, excellent.!! Lasagna was awesome! SEAFOOD Angelican dish, totally deliciousness! Alfredo and Marsala sauces ROCK! Glad I come here when I come back into Hellpaso! The desserts are also MADE in house, I love the white chocolate pretzels! I used to send them back to. HAWAII all the TIME!!! Must try if ur in area! Authentic and delicious!

Not as fancy as I was expecting for some reason the paper menus on the table set the tone for disappointment but the food was actually good and they had live music nice touch, I’ll return soon

Pretend Italian food! I ordered spaghetti and meatballs and my wife ordered eggplant parmesan. Our thought was to test the easiest entrees available to see what potential they might have for less pedestrian options.
They failed on both orders. When one is not familiar with herbs and spices but rely solely on salt, pepper and cheese, might as well order a pizza. And not from here.

For the most part it was okay our waiter was awesome the food was OK but what killed it was the prices we went for the 6.99 lunch special left paying $ 87 because they do not disclose their desset prices really ridiculous 13.98 for two small chocolate cakes 6.99. For one canole the size of coin roll 6.99 for terimasu the size of my credit card that’s a rip the lighting was awful and the décor a bit weird. The sadder part the chocolate cake was really dry and the frosting was really thick and almost gum paste texture. save your money go to olive garden for this price. The only reason its not 1star is because our waiter was outstanding !!!

The wine selection is great. Customer service was respectful, prompt and polite. The Chicken Marsala was moist and the sauce was great. The music and atmosphere reminded me of a Chicago restaurant versus being in El Paso. Great vibe. I look forward to coming back and trying some of the more elaborate menu items.

Tuesday nights are buy one get one free. Our group walked over from the Marriott. We were greeted and had the tour of the delicious chocolate treats on the left.
We ordered the bruschetta and calamari (sautéed) for appetizers. I’m not a fan of calamari so I didn’t taste it. But, everyone at the table seemed to like it. The bruschetta was disappointing. Too much onion and the tomatoes were not flavorful.
I ordered the shrimp linguini and it was excellent. The display is weird. The sauce is put in a bowl and the shrimp and noodles were separate. But, I strained the capers from the sauce, cut the shrimp up and made room on the plate for the noodles. Then I mixed it up with salt and pepper. I felt like there was too much assembly, but when I tasted it, it was awesome. The portion was on the smaller side so I also ordered the chocolate cake. Wow! Excellent. Highly recommend it.
Our service was excellent.
If we were in El Paso again, I would go here and try more items. Can’t beat buy one get one free!

Overall our experience at Dominics was alright. The service was by far the best part of the experience. Our waitress was quite attentive and knowledgeable about the good, bad, and ugly of the menu.
The wine list had the standard on (no frills) and was on the reasonable to pricey side with some standard selections ranging up to four times retail and others the standard double.
Unfortunately, our sauteed calamari was something to be desired – it was grossly rubbery and overall exuded a rather fishy aroma. It came out in less than two minutes from ordering, so my guess is that it was sitting in the butter/​oil sauce and simply flash sauteed upon ordering. The waitress (not kitchen manager, who seemed rather unable to deal with criticism as he never came to discuss the issue but was quick to take praise from other tables and spoke with every other table in restaurant except ours) did an excellent job of repairing the issue and offering salads or a replacement appetizer.
With regards to the entrees, I had the veal parm. and was surprised when asked if I wanted the «patties» or the veal leg. I asked flat out if the «patties» were just frozen and processed to which I was informed they were. I went with the «fresh» veal leg instead. I was not in love with the «fresh» veal; however the pasta was cooked to perfection and the sauce was quite good.
My date had a chicken pasta dish with a tomato based sauce with jalapenos and some other fresh vegetables. The chicken was rubbery, but again the sauce and pasta were well executed.
The best part of the meal was the dessert from the side store located in the restaurant «chocolat café.» While it took about 20 minutes to get two chocolate covered strawberries, they were worth the wait (not sure if this was a breakdown in service or if they were freshly dipped and had to set).
Overall, I would recommend this place as a casual lunch or maybe an average date night restaurant. Stick to a basic pasta and sauce and you wont be disappointed. The décor is dated and they have some lighting issues (colored spotlights on the diners) so the ambiance needs help.

INCREDIBLE SERVICE from our server JASON! If I could give an example of flawless service, it would be our server tonight, Jason! Usually on most visits to restaurants we would repeatedly ask to have our drinks refilled or always track down our server but we never had to do any of that this evening. Our Dominics experience was over the top!
along with the EXCELLENT service, was the great food! We are first timers at Dominics and we were told by my brother that Dominics has the BEST italian food. My husband ordered rack of lamb and I ordered the Seafood Angelica with pesto sauce as our main dish. GOSH! Can you say YUM?! :) Also, we got appetizers Portobello mushroom cap and calamari Those were delish as well! Last but not least, the italian cream cake! I thought to myself «omg i have no room for dessert. no way!» Well my husband ordered the cake and i had a taste and all of a sudden I had extra room in there! Decadence! Dense but not overwhelming sweet and not dry, considering it was a type of white cake i guess (i usually dont favor white or yellow cakes because of their dryness).
Anyways…we will be seeing you soon Dominics!

Great place, we had escargots, sautéed calamari and the white pizza!!! Our waitress/​bartender was very pleasant!

We ordered two pepperoni pizzas, a lasagna, the Caesar salad and a regular salad for five of us to share. This was plenty of food, and very reasonably priced. The guys said the pizza was good, as were the salads. The lasagna was okay too. The sauce was a little dark for me, but that could just be my taste. We took some cannoli to go as well. The cheese could have been a little softer, but it was still good.
The best part was definitely the service. Our waiter was very attentive from the moment we sat down, until he opened the door as we left. He explained everything thoroughly, and was very professional. He made sure we were well taken care of!
If we ever return to El Paso, we’ll be back. I could see stopping by for some coffee and tiramisu!