Basil Leaf Ristorante

This place is amazing. I live in New York and was here visiting family. This place is close to the airport, but it is better than any restaurant you will take an adventure to visit. Trust me… This is the go to place! Make sure to order som Utica greens.

A four star is generous. Food is good but just a step up from average. The ambience however is cozy and aesthetically pleasing. Service was average. Read several reviews of slow service. My experience has been average rate of speed for this style of establishment.

Very long wait. I ordered pasta oil butter (was kid portion) and friend ordered chicken. Been waiting an hour for our food

We have been for lunch and dinner several times. Very good food. The food tastes homemade not frozen, and reheated. They serve decent quality cocktails, a bit pricey but really comparable for the area, and the service has been good each visit.

Love this place! This is one of my favorite places to eat. We go all the time and have never been disappointed. Chicken Marsala is the best! Weekends you will have to wait awhile without a reservation, but that is every place area this area on the weekend.

Went here again. PHENOMENAL DINNER!!! Had a party of 7 people. Service was excellent, food was fantastic. Each course came out timely, accurately and was PERFECT! Great evening. Even though it was a busy Wednesday night, no glitches in any aspect of the night. Birthday celebration waz best yet! Can’t wait to go again!!!

We made a mistake and thought this was basil, thai so, i suppose expecting Thai and seeing an Italian menu didn’t start out dinner out right, we decided to stay anyway. The seating was 1 out 5 not very relaxing, the prices very high for the quality of food. We felt for the price the quality of pasta and sauce should have been top of the line. The service was good, besides that their are plenty of other good Italian restaurants near by like Nesticos and Twin Trees to waste your $ here.

The food was very good. The atmosphere was decent. The service was ok. It was pricey.

This was my first time at Basil Leaf. I was with a party of 7 which made reservations but our table wasn’t ready until 30 minutes later which is my only complaint. I would of given them 4 stars if we were seated on time. Also, we were seated near the kitchen which limited the amount of space behind our seats but the service was good. Bread was warm and plentiful. The wine selection was good and I enjoyed a glass of Ménage à Trois with my meal. I got a Caesar salad ($ 2 up charge) with my dinner which was one of the best ones I’ve had in awhile! For dinner, I got the Chicken Francese which was amazing! Probably the best I’ve had since I’ve been to NYC and much better than most of the local Italian places in the Syracuse area. Their price is higher than others but well worth it! I’ll be back to try their chicken riggies with vodka sauce which my friends tell me isn’t on the menu but is amazing!

Very underwhelming. I had heard such good things about this place from people whom I respect so I was looking forward to a good lunch. My first impression was of a dull, gloomy, long cave. Where we were seated, the leather bench was torn badly and repaired carelessly and inadequately with tape. It looked as though they simply couldn’t be bothered, plus it’s unhygienic to have a gaping opening. A real health hazard.
Salad and soup I could have made myself. Boring and bland. Generic. My Carbonara was super salty to the point of ineditability with what looked more like ham then bacon and far too much of it. The actual pasta was nice but I just couldn’t get past the salt. The Penne Marinara had a weak, thin, bland sauce, not seasoned at all. All in all, a very disappointing experience. Yet another hope for a real Italian restaurant bites the dust! When are we going to get some authenticity here in CNY in stead of these quasi Italian places? Anyone can throw pasta in a pan. I want something authentically Italian that I can’t do. The search continues.
Music also too loud.

My first visit! Amazing experience! Filet Gorgonzola worth every penny! Service at the bar is amazing! Very friendly people. Spoke with the Chef and he is very pleasant! I will be back when I’m back in Syracuse!

This is just my opinion, everyone has different taste! However, the food is not bad by any means but it is very overpriced for what it is. I feel you can get a better meal at Pastablities for a better price and the pasta is hands down better. Angoties is very comparable when it comes to food and has a better price point, however, it is not as nice inside! My suggestion is if you want to try it make sure you are prepared to spend good money for average food, it is not a fantastic Italian restaurant, just average. On a side note I ordered a glass of wine and got the wrong type, the waiter smelled it then proceeded to drink it and said oh you’re right this is Chardonnay. It was extremely bazaar, who does something like that?

The food was good and the service was better. I find myself one of the people who enjoyed being taken care of, so I lied service. So therefore I definitely enjoyed the dinner. The only thing I ask is that the dish boys would not come out to watch the game and cheer for their team. I definitely could have done without that, being that I was on a date. Other than that the scenery was good and it was quaint and quiet. I recommend this place cause of its versatility.

Had dinner with my girlfriend to celebrate a promotion. I felt like our table was right next to another couple. The service was a bit slow but not that bad. I got the chicken rigges and was very disappointed with the meal. The sauce was runny and the pasta was clearly not home made. The number one rule to quality Italian restaurants is to make your own pasta! It takes a little longer but makes a HUGE difference. I won’t be going back to this place again.

I had wanted to try this place for a while and finally got there. Sorry to say seriously underwhelmed. Everything took forever — from drinks to soup to entrees. They were busy but not packed.
The chicken pastina soup was well flavored but not what one would expect. Mostly broth and vegetables with very little chicken or pasta.
We got our dinner an hour and a half after we arrived. And it was ok, not great. The veal dish I ordered had way too much prosciutto and was therefore very salty. I couldn’t even taste the veal through all the salt and garlic.
The best part of the meal was the crusty bread. And that’s great because we needed something to eat during the wait for our meals. I don’t feel the need to return here.

Our first time here with friends. We were impressed. We had reservations for 5:00 and were seated promptly. Jessica was taking care of us and she was great. The best Utica Greens I have ever had, not too wet or mushy. It was excellent!
Food was fresh, came out on time and we loved it all! We had Calamari, rigatoni with vodka sauce, baked eggplant, 14oz strip steak, Caesar shrimp salad. It was all excellent and we will be back.

So, I heard good things about this place. My family is from North Syracuse, and we’re Italian. So to hear good things about an Italian place from my mother, is a good sign. I had never been to the previous location, because going into the village of North Syracuse I always assumed it’d be limited parking and a hassle. So, we get limited date nights with two small kids, so we try to only go to nice places and decided to give this place a try. My first impression was while walking into the place, seeing a sign asking for information should if the property have been defaced, My first thought was — what kind of customers come here?
The hostess sat us, which was fine, however the table was broken, it was folded up, and the hinge wouldn’t hold the table so it sat on my legs until I changed seats and moved my place setting.
We ordered drinks, I didn’t see a single craft beer on the menu, so I asked, and they did have an IPA, which was served at a good temperature. Thought it was strange they couldn’t add any craft beer to the menu, as popular as they are today, and I had to ask.
The waitress came, and didn’t offer any specials, so we checked over the menu. I love prosciutto wrapped veal and mushrooms so I went with that. Bread came, was good, but butter was near frozen and ripped the bread. We actually even tried to soften it over the candle to we could use the butter.
The veal was great, as was my wife’s chicken dish, and the pasta side dish was also good. Not a single complaint about the food — Fantastic!
Drinks went dry, and we finished eating, empty plates sat in front of us for a while, when someone finally came to get the dishes, We had to ask the girl who was busing if we could get another round of drinks. She said she’d tell our server.
Server came, and asked how food was, and took our second drink order. Not sure why we had to wait so long to get a $ 10 martini, seems like that might be a priority for the waitress who is getting tipped on the total bill. But she was clearly overworked with her table of 8 people who did nothing but complain in our ears behind us. She seemed flustered, and even the manager had to come over to help once. All in all, dinner for 2, with 4 drinks and 2 entrees, no dessert was about $ 80. I doubt I will return.
Friendly server, but terribly slow service and we were not made to feel like valued customers. We even wanted desert, but didn’t want to wait for it. It should also be said that this was a Sunday Night, and the restaurant was not busy.

This is a tough one to review. The night started off with circling the parking lot for a space as the place was packed. Not to worry said my friend, «I made reservations». We walk in to find several groups waiting so my friend says, «I have a reservation!» We are told that they are getting the table ready so we wait and watch all the other groups already waiting get seated and after a follow-​up where we are once again told they are getting the table ready, we are seated. Our table was in the middle of an extremely noisy room! I don’t recall it ever being so loud when this place was Galveston’s or Fresno’s so I don’t know what they did but loud it was!
We were served water immediately and told our server would be right over. After a bit of a wait she arrived to tell us the «specials», turns out there was only one. We ordered a bottle of wine which took some time to arrive, finally ordered and then waited, and waited for salads. After another wait, entrees arrived. Mine was called Chicken Piedmontese and was delicious as was my husband’s steak. Our dining companions were not as impressed with the Chicken Battista (chicken w/​Utica greens) or the Haddock Marinara.
For my food, I would have given 3 starts bordering on 4 as it was really good but the rest of the experience was so «meh» that I can’t even give them a «3». Not sure how long they have been at this location but it certainly seems like there are a lot of kinks to be worked out.

I have been to Basil Leaf twice and my experience for both times was great! I had the rigatoni with vodka sauce and it was delicious. Portions are enormous but who could complain about that? The server we had the second time was fast and very friendly. She even treated us with tiramisu which was extremely nice of her. The bill came out to be around $ 35 which is not very expensive at all for dinner for two.
Overall, my experience was wonderful and I will more than likely come back again. The restaurant had such an elegant atmosphere so I would definitely recommend this place to have a nice dinner.

We arrived at 6:00pm to find out that one of the guys who answered the phone to take our reservation had forgotten to write it in the book after he wrote it on separate piece of paper. So once the name was spoken her remembered the call and quickly wrote it in the book. When we finally got seated we had drinks at the table and had bread, and then we ordered dinner. And we waited and
hour goes by still no dinner. Salad comes ½ hr goes by finally 2 of the 5 dinners come out. Then we wait some more for the rest 2 more come out then finally the last meal. I ordered the fettuccine Alfredo and asked if they could add chicken. They did but it wasn’t even a whole breast and the pasta amount was very small for the price of $ 18. Though the taste was very good. I ordered a long Island Iced tea as a drink and when we got the check I was charged $ 16 for that one drink. Wow! I have never paid that much for a drink before and I never will again! With this type of pricing and horribly slow service, I won’t be coming back ever again.