Fresh Basil’s Trattoria

HORRIBLE SERVICE! Worst service I’ve experienced in my life – not just in NYC, but anywhere. So, of the thousand or so restaurants I’ve ever been to, this is the worst.

Ginormous portion sizes! I placed a dinner order and here’s what I thought:
Pasta bolognese — Pretty good, but not the most amazing pasta I’ve ever had. While I did enjoy the fresh mozzarella cheese on top, I couldn’t find the meat in the meat sauce.
Delivery — Pretty quick. Took about thirty minutes from the time I placed my order.
It’s a little on the heavy side, so if I were to try it again, it’d be for lunch.

Ordered delivery. After waiting for a while I called that place and service was horrible and rude. When I mentioned that I’ve been waiting my delivery for too long the guy said that he «gotta go»

The food is pretty good, they make one of the best pasta bolognese in the area. However as most reviewers pointed out, the staff is horrendous. Inconsistent delivery times, rude delivery guys who just throw the food in your hands, rude phone customer service. The only reason they’re not getting less stars is their food.

THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED!!! order was placed at 11:45AM — by 130pm i had not recieved the order so i called to ask where it was. the woman who answered the phone could not have been ruder from the second she picked up the phone, completely unprovoked. turns out they never even printed out my order!!! I never received an apology at all for this mistake on THEIR END! when i asked for the manager he was SO rude– told me that there was nothing they could do to compensate me for my inconvenience and to never call the restaurant ever again and HUNG UP ON ME!!! this poor excuse for a restaurant should honestly be shut down. ive never felt so disrespected by someone working in the service industry. DO NOT ORDER FROM FRESH BASIL’S — save yourself the headache and the attitude

That garlic dinner roll, i honestly can’t describe it. It is the best bread i ever had. Chewy, the taste, the aroma, the way it pulls. It is simply heavenly.
The rest of the food is very solid, i order from them almost every day, some salads are great, some are average, salads with salmon or steak are usually great. I always ask for dressing on the side because if they add it themselves they drown salad in it. Sometimes i have like 2 inches of oil in the bowl after i am done.
Pasta in olive oil and garlic is very good. Other pastas are ok, just pasta, sauce and cheese. Lentil soup is OK, chicken soup is very good. Paninis and sandwiches are solid.
Holiday specials tent to be very good, roasted butternut squash was on point, most sauteed vegetable are very good.
Overall i would recommend the place, good food at a good price, when you compare the prices to other Manhattan places you can almost call it a bargain.

Everything was over sauced. I asked for dressing on the side and the salad came drenched in dressing and inedible. The pasta was swimming in sauce.

If you tell your customer that you can deliver a catering order by 12:15pm when the order was placed at 11:24am same day, KEEP YOUR WORD!!!
Do NOT get on the phone accusing said customer of fabricating the time the person you hired taking the order said could be done NOR that the order «is going out» when it’s not even ready to NOR that you have other orders too. Seriously!!!
My company placed large orders from this place on a constant basis, NEVER AGAIN!!!

Worst place I’ve ever ordered from. Not only was my food cold, they didn’t even give me my complete order. When I called to inquire the man was extremely rude. DO NOT ORDER.

We used to order from here all time (at work) and it everything used to taste really good and fresh BUUUUTTTTTT just had the chicken parmigiana dinner plate with fusilli arrabiatta aaaaaaand I can’t even finish eating because it’s so salty! Everything seems fresh and pretty good quality but the sauces are just too salty, even the garlic knot tastes saltier than usual. Different chef/​cook? What’s going on fresh basil?

Just like the other Unilocalers, I ordered for lunch. I haven’t been to the location and I only ordered once, but my experience was so flawless that I feel confident giving a 5 star review.
I ordered through seamless and it arrived within 20mins tops. The delivery guy was friendly on the phone and in person. I’m used to delivery guys calling and saying «food downstairs» like some sort of illiterate caveman, but this guy used full sentences and actually said goodbye before hanging up. (These are big factors, people.)
I got my food and I was immediately impressed with how nicely packaged it was. My plate was on a sturdy cardboard tray and had the utensils, free freshly baked roll and a little cup of Parmesan cheese nicely packed within.
I ordered the baked cheese tortellini with bolognese sauce. I take my first bite of this magnificent deliciousness and I moaned with such joy that my coworkers got a little creeped out. It was fresh and flavorful and definitely left me stuffed with only half. I saved the other half for the next day. Can’t beat a two-​fer deal!
Definitely became a new lunch spot.

We order from here for work thru our Seamless accounts during the busy tax seasons — I love Italian food for the saucy, creamy, tomatoey dishes. The meals at Fresh Basils are cheap, plentiful and good. The only thing is there is TOO much pasta and you can put on weight easily from having this, even once a week. For those days, you are craving for ‘less unhealthy’, i recommend getting their Sandwiches/​Wraps with pasta salad combos. The sandwiches are amazing and the pasta salad fulfills my pasta-​fix without the heaviness in their usual pasta entrees.
The only thing is that they messed up my order once, giving me peanut butter cookies instead of white chocolate chip macadamia. How can you mix the two?

This is another place we get a lot at the office for lunch. We always get the penne with vodka sauce which is pretty addictive and I have to give a shout out to the chicken parm, though a tad on the salty side, it’s pretty darn good! Shrimp scampi is very tasty as well as the sauteed veggies. The mini cannoli’s are something I look forward to. One itty bitty mini cannoli can’t hurt right? Overall this place is pretty good and I look forward to it being on the lunch menu.

I ordered for delivery on a work night with some of my coworkers. Delivery was really fast! We ordered the calamari and shrimp cocktail for appetizers — not disappointing. Those two dishes were not enough — I ordered the Linguine Al Fruitti Di Mare — more seafood on linguine! It was flavorful and perfectly cooked. It was also a huge portion, I was full after halfway. I didn’t like the bread/​garlic bread that we order though — too hard to even take a bite. Everything else was great though — I would definitely order again!

Great Italian food for takeout. Very filling. Recommend gnocchi and carbonara

HORRIBLE !! NEVER ORDERING AGAIN !
We ordered lunch for our office (about 15 people).
Lunch showed up an hour and a half late.
After 20 min i called to see where it was they said 5 minutes. 20 minutes later i called again they said 5 minutes again. food didn’t show up until 40 minutes later!
When the food finally came a lot of it was missing.
When i called back to speak with the manager he had the nerve to say «its not a big deal, its just food».
Our entire office was pissed off, and the manager is rude and unhelpful.
Someone fire this man please !
Never ordering from here again.

Meh. I’m disappointed.
I heard great things about Fresh Basil’s so was excited to order some take out. Sadly, they were not up to my expecations.
First, the delivery experience. They brought the food orders in a broken box. How can I carry a broken box up the elevator and back to my office? I cannot. Worst part was the delivery man asked if I had anyone to help me, so I called down a colleague, and he just left me with the mess of food falling out of the box everywhere. Terrible service.
I ordered the minestrone, which was good, but lacked the pasta I tend to look for in the soup. The real fail was the 18 ingredient salad. There were certainly not 18 ingredients, and the chicken was dry without flavor. On top of it, the dressing was just plain goopy and gross.
Sorry, but not going to do it again. The only thing that was good was the Perrier.

My order for a meeting came on-​time but the food was mediocre and salty almost to the point of being inedible.

I love me some Fresh Basil’s. I swear they put something addictive in their Aurora/​Modo Mio sauce. Portions are generous– when I have the self-​control to do it, one order of their pasta can stretch into three meals. Highly recommend the Pasta Gamberetti and the Farfalle al Verde for when you’re craving creamy saucy comfort food. Their sauces are their star– basically any pasta with sauce here is excellent.
Tiramisu is also decadent (no fancier than any other tiramisu, but good nonetheless).
The one thing I wouldn’t recommend is anything with «olive oil and garlic”– I’ve tried the sauteed veggies and some of the pastas with this designation and the garlic is always a little too raw to really flavor the dish, so you just wind up with bland slightly oily food with raw garlic on top. No thanks.
Overall, though, order like you don’t care how fat it’s going to make you, and you’ll be happy as long as you’re eating.
(Note, the other reviews have mentioned this but Fresh Basil’s is now delivery-​only, combined with Sherwood To Go to be a Seamless powerhouse, but the food is still as addictive as it was back when it was a brick and mortar restaurant).

I was in the mood for italian and I ordered a Rigatoni al Forno (scallops and baby shrimp). It came out to $ 18.95 before tax and tip. It wasn’t too memorable and the delivery was slow. For that price, I think I’ll get my butt to Carmine’s instead.
I can’t vouch for their in restaurant service or their other food, but I’d give this a pass since my dish was just ok.