Lidia’s

Last week my husband and I visited Pittsburgh for a rock concert. We stayed at the fantastic hotel next door to Lidia’s, and decided to have dinner there. It was a very disappointing meal. I ordered the Pasta Trio, and my husband ordered the Risotto. The Risotto arrived and we both tasted it — they must have used low sodium stock… this dish had absolutely no flavor at all. There were no salt or pepper shakers on any of the tables. My first two pasta samples arrived. One was a very very good ravioli with some type of sage filling. The other was fusilli in a red sauce that was ordinary to the extreme. When our waitress checked in, nearly a half hour later, we informed her that I’d never received the third pasta, and my husband’s dish was unsalted and bland. She left and about 10 minutes later, I received my third pasta, a wide noodle with a chicken reduction sauce. Not exciting. For $ 33 I expected more. It was pasta, after all, one small serving of each. I had dessert, which was 3 flavors of gelato. The flavors were good enough, but not the same as the menu. All in all, for the money paid, and time spent (over an hour and a half) this restaurant did not merit more than 2 stars. A shame, since the menu was interesting and the restaurant itself roomy and nicely decorated. There seemed to be plenty of waitstaff — but somehow our waitress was either running all over the place or had disappeared for long lengths of time. This place needs some help.

TL;DR :
Who’s it for?: Hungry pasta lovers, people in the area looking for a slightly upscale, Italian meal.
Service: ⁹⁄₁₀ (wait ’till you see the number of service staff)
Food: ⁷⁄₁₀ (I’d usually rate this closer to 6)
Value: ⁸⁄₁₀ if you eat a good bit and do the tasting trio, ⁶⁄₁₀ otherwise
Décor/​Environment: Slightly upscale
Recommend or not?: Recommend if you are in a group of pasta lovers, otherwise no.
Full Review:
Lidia’s is a slightly upscale Italian restaurant located on Smallman Street. For those who are regulars, the «signature» item on the menu is «Lidia’s Pasta Tasting Trio», an «as much as you can eat» of three different kinds of pasta that are updated daily. This is definitely the highlight for me as well since the rest of the menu, while not bad, don’t seem to be a good value for me
Service ⁹⁄₁₀:
This, to me, is Lidia’s best point as of this review. While slightly odd, Lidia’s boasts a RIDICULOUS number of service staff. The record of different faces I’ve seen who have waited on my table was six with the latest visit numbering five. Usually, this results with your table being waited on promptly and not being left in the cold during your meal.
As for the servers themselves, historically (and for the most recent visit), they are absolutely solid. While you may see some referring to some notes when they read off certain specials or the daily trio, I’ve yet to encounter someone that had no idea what they were doing. In addition, they have almost always been friendly and attentive to their work as it is needed.
Everett was the stand out person during service for me today. He was busing and was full of energy with a happy attitude. Honestly, this really made a huge difference this visit that I even felt it warranted something extra to really give him a big thumbs up but he was exceptional (the other service staff on this visit were great too)!
Food ⁷⁄₁₀:
This is the real shame for me. The food itself is not that great. It’s alright and every now and again you’ll have a gem within the pasta trio while other times it just ends up being a mess on your plate of (sometimes) watery pasta. While I will acknowledge that the independent entrees (AKA, not trio) are better in quality, this is not exactly an amazing experience for any diner. I particularly avoid the salad and desserts as they’ve never really amazed me (the tiramisu came the closest but
The one thing that I find always to be a plus (while I passed on it this time because it didn’t quite make sense since i was alone to review the place) is the bread offering. It is awesome with different kinds of bread with two types of spread (one salmon based and the other bean if I recall). If you’re in a group, you will survive the wait to the main course.
To me, if I had to point at one thing that ends up being underwhelming, is perhaps the seasoning and general food prep. The trio can be particularly hit hard on this point because they’re constantly cooking up more but the quality fluctuates wildly to the point where I actually made it a point to visit today right at the start of dinner service to see if there was a difference on the first prep and it was amazing at how the quality went on a roller coaster ride. Maybe it’s a lack of excitement for the menu or just a general complacency but the food really can’t be counted on to be the best in flavor.
Value (⁸⁄₁₀ if a big eater of pasta, ⁶⁄₁₀ otherwise):
This comes down to the price versus quality. It just doesn’t make sense to me if you come here for anything besides the trio for your dollar. The food just isn’t up to par to other comparable competitors. Even with the trio, it can be kinda hit and miss depending upon what food is available that day (for me, my cardinal rule is to look out for mushrooms in their lineup or weekend service). So if you just want to scarf down pasta, you’ll probably get a decent bang for the buck. Otherwise, you’re out of luck.
Décor/​Environment:
As per usual, I don’t give a score for this since people have different tastes. It passes the cleanliness check and avoids anything that would really ruin a dining experience in my opinion. Bathrooms are well kept (from my experience anyways) and tables aren’t squished together. It is a little towards upscale but you’ll see plenty of people in casual wear dining here (often people heading to a ballgame or having stopped by the history center or something pop up).
Final thoughts:
I really wish I could recommend this place as an all around good place to dine but it really isn’t UNLESS you eat a lot of pasta.
Tip for reading to the end: Call ahead to get the trio listing for the day and see if it matches with what you’d want to eat and go in a group. I would even see if you can get seated at the start of service if you don’t mind the dining area being a little more sparse just because your service level will probably be better.

It is 2:45pm and the restaurant is closed. It actually closes from 2:00 — 5:00 pm Mon– Fri. The information for this restaurant needs to be updated! The restaurant’s information currently listed on Unilocal shows the restaurant as «open» right now.

Unless Olive Garden is closed, don’t go here. Staff is excellent though. Unfortunately Unilocal asked to provide more details on review. For that I apologize Lidia. Presentation was a –2 on a ten point scale and that was better than the special Chicken Parm. Nice wine selection though. Staff and wine selection is why it got its one star.

Same as it ever was.
The décor is the same as it was the last time I was here. (Can’t believe it’s been 5 years).
Stopped in for lunch. Had the pasta trio. Crab meat ravioli, fettuccine with spinach, and rigatoni with bolognese sauce. Good stuff.
Why did a star come off after 5 years? It seemed to me the wait staff for the lunch time patrons was in training, so the service seemed a bit sluggish and off. Other than that, the food was great.

My friend and I ate lunch here today. Went in with an open mind after reading several different reviews. They started us out with bread and olive oil with a pesto spread and a chickpea-​tapinad olive spread. Both spreads were delicious. I had the pasta trio. It included either a Ceasar salad or soup. I had the soup. It was an onion, smoked bacon, and tomato soup. All the flavors came through and was amazing. The pasta trio included penne with a tomato sauce, sausage, and peppers, ravioli stuffed with clam and leeks, and a thick spaghetti with a pesto sauce. All of them were very good. The pastas were cooked beautifully. The spaghetti had a nice bite to it. Each accompanying sauce was flavorful especially the penne and ravioli. The pesto with the spaghetti was good too. The tomato sauce with the penne had a hint of what seemed like cinnamon. So good! Delicious. I would definitely have the trio again.
My friend had the gnocchi with duck ragu. It was delicious as well. Very flavorful. I had the tiramisu for dessert. It was very good. It had good flavor but was not overly sweet as so many tiramisus I’ve tried have been. It had a custardy texture which was very nice. I would definitely have it again as well.
Lastly the service was fantastic. Our hostess was very nice and polite. Our waitress Kelly was amazing! She was informative, friendly, attentive, and fun! Our experience here was awesome! We will definitely be back. Loved it!

I went to lidia’s for a nice meal before a show downtown. I think if the pasta trio has options you like, this is a great choice. However, if you aren’t a fan of those you will definitely be able to find something, but it isn’t exactly what I was hoping for. I got the manicotti which was fine but not great. The prices are a little much and I think that you can get the same sort of food much cheaper at another popular Italian restaurant. You can call a couple hours ahead to find out about the trio options, which I think is a good idea. If you don’t like those however recommend going somewhere else and saving your money. It is also frustrating that you don’t get any salad or any sort of side with your pasta entrees.

Omg! Lunch was fantastic! I love Lidia, her shows, cookbooks and restaurants. We went to Lidia’s Kansas City last year and Lidia’s Pittsburgh was a more scaled down industrial version of that restaurant.
I loved the classy glass grape chandeliers and all of the décor. Lunch was reasonable too, as our bill was $ 36 for 2 people. We had the amazing manicotti and the pasta trio. Each came with a salad. It was a lot of food. I loved how they served the water from large glass bottles, it reminded me of Sunday dinner at my grandparents house.
They had a large party area on the second floor too which looked like a fantastic place to hold an event.
The wait staff was very polite and attentive. If you haven’t been, you must try it!

Seemed like a place for old folks and tourists… Am from NYC and love Becco, so I was surprised at this place. Server did not know how to pronounce Osso Bucco or the wine we wanted and insisted we not order what we came to try — the unlimited pasta trio. I got the lasagna, which was dry and uninspired… Would never ever come back and I would urge you to try one of Pitt ‘s other great restaurants — at least until the executive chef and or manager here starts to demand some quality control. Lidia should be ashamed that this is being run this way.

So disappointing… I was so looking forward to a good pasta dinner! I never got to taste any pasta. The Caesar salad was soggy and the service was so slow we ended up leaving without even getting our dinners. We waited 40 minutes after finishing our salads when the server let the manager know we had been waiting too long. He never approached our table, but he walked past us several times. We continued to wait another 15 minutes then decided to leave.

Went for brunch on Saturday just before the hockey game. Lidias is just a 20 minute walk to the arena. I have to say that I was expecting so much more when it comes to the quality of the food! The antipasto bar was very nice with a wide selection. The fish of the day was a little dry, nothing special about it. We also had the pasta trio. The rigatoni were okay, the fettuccine al olio was not the greatest however the gnocchi made with the duck Ragu was incredible. I also wasn’t very impressed with the dessert selections. The tiramisu needed to be spiked with a little more espresso and some liquor.
It was nice to have a mimosa or sangria included in the price of the brunch but I think that the espresso should also be included.
I gave this restaurant a three star since the service was awesome!

We tried a few different items to get a feel for the restaurant. We love Italian flavors but aren’t really pasta eaters, so did not try any of the noodles offered. Everything was good; the kale salad and antipasti plate being our favorites. Regarding the Italian sausage and polenta plate… hubby thought the polenta was great but the sausage could have been better, while I thought the sausage was great but wasn’t wild about the polenta.
We were there @ 8 on a Thursday night with tired kids, so it could have been disastrous, but the service was great!
**There is a gluten free pasta option available if needed.** Again, we didn’t eat any pasta, but one of the kids is GF and I rarely find reviews that mention this so wanted to put it out there.

I’ve tried this place once, and I loved it. The décor of the restaurant is very elegant but urban. I believe I had the Pasta Trio and my favorite was a ravioli filled with sausage and pear. Furthermore, the dessert of tiramisu was amazing. I came here with a large group, and we ate upstairs in a room that overlooked the restaurant.

4.5 stars
Had a lovely anniversary dinner here with my hubby (first year of marriage behind us, all downhill from here lol). I loved the atmosphere of the restaurant from the moment we stepped in — old warehouse turned into a cozy place with beautiful built-​ins on the wall and cool glass fixtures. Reminded me a bit of our first apartment, so I was instantly excited that we chose Lidias for the special occasion.
We were promptly greeted by a server with water and a tasty bread basket. I loved that the bread is served with a black olive tapenade and pesto as well as olive oil. Added an extra level of quality and tasted awesome on the fresh breads. I was then pleasantly surprised to see a $ 32 wine list. My hubby doesn’t care much for wine, but encourages me to order a bottle if it’s a special occasion. I always feel bad spending too much, so this was a perfect option. The waitress helped me choose a dry white wine that was very nice with our meals.
The entrée was wonderful as well. I almost always order frutti di mare at Italian restaurants so was pleased to find a similar dish on the menu — zuppa di pesce. Incredibly flavorful broth with delicate little bites of pasta and seafood cooked to perfection. I would definitely order it again next time. My hubby had the pasta trio and loved the mushroom ravioli that they were featuring.
My only gripe is that the tables were reallllly close together. The waitstaff couldn’t even get between the tables to fill our drinks or bring pasta servings. I know from a business standpoint, you want to maximize your seating, but it went a little overboard. It was also Valentine’s Day weekend so they may have split 4 tops into 2 tops, leaving less space in between than usual. I’ll have to pay attention next time I done there.

Lidia’s has a good reputation as a great place for some delicious Italian food. I have only eaten here once for the Sunday brunch which included a drink, buffet, entrée and dessert buffet. I had their signature all you can eat trio entrée which was very good and I would definitely get again. The desserts were the only thing I found underwhelming,
disappointing and not worth the calories. Maybe it was just the buffet desserts. Prices are moderate but well worth it in my opinion. Atmosphere is classy but casual attire seemed acceptable. The staff was both professional and knowledgeable. Can’t wait to come back!

It has been nothing but bad service. We were told to see our server for a spoon when we asked a floor employee/​server. Manager visited our table and gave nothing but excuses from him being new to Lidias, in the process of evaluating staff to being busy and understaffed. Oops, who’s the manager doing the staffing? It’s Saturday night! Did you not expect to be busy? I give a 2 rating only because of the service. Haven’t received our meals just yet
There are fruit flies hovering around our table too. Wish I could add a photo to show the mess on our table as well.
Got here at 6:00pm, it’s now 8:00 and still no main course. Uggghhhhhh!!!
One of our party wanted her soup boxed up to-​go. It’s MIA. Lol
3 out of 6 meals arrived at 8:10. Still waiting for the other three. It’s now 8:13
The penne vodka is bland and has only a taste of oregano
The goat cheese stuffed ravioli is slimy
The pasta with chicken was about the best from the trio. It’s an AYCE trio.
We’re waiting for pasta refill. It’s now 8:30 and still not even close to dessert.
I’m sure the ending doesn’t get much better. Let me just end with this… haven’t changed my rating of 2. At least the atmosphere was nice and the staff was pleasant regardless of service issues.
9:15pm waiting for the check…
Finally getting ready to leave and it’s almost 9:30pm. .3−½ hrs. really???

A large group of us ate here to celebrate a retirement (no, not mine!).
We split numerous appetizers. The octopus was my favorite. We also had calamari (unique because the pieces are thinner than usual) and fried cheese.
The trio of pastas that evening was a pappardelle with olio, butternut squash and caramelized onion (ok but too much garlic); a Classic bolognese with Rigatoni (good); and lastly a Goat cheese ravioli in thyme butter that I could not stop eating. I had thirds on that one it was so tasty. The ravioli were big so the cheese flavor came through. The beauty of a trio of pastas– there always will be one that is amazing and outshines the rest.
For dessert I had the pumpkin spice custard and loved it. You would need to be a pumpkin fan to appreciate this desert. It was served in a sauce and with a piece of pumpkin seed toffee brittle on top– loved the mixed texture going on there.

We did the works: three course fixed menu, wine, hours filling up the restaurant with laughter. It may be my best restaurant experience to date.
The newly renovated restaurant is amazing. A little Art Deco influence amongst the industrial strip district is a beautiful juxtaposition that makes you forget where you are.
We had wine from Lidia’s vineyard — a nice white that was not too sweet and not too dry — perfect with our Caesar salads.
Which after the salad alone, I was pretty full.
Three pastas: walnut pesto, mushroom ravioli, and a savory meat sauce. It was a lot to handle.
Finished with a beautiful and immaculate dessert which you don’t think you have room for until you take one bite and suddenly you’ve cleaned your plate.
My experience here was nothing less than excellent. The executive chef here is running a fantastic kitchen.

My mother and I like to brunch here. Admittedly, I’m not a huge antipasti fan, but I still manage to find amazing things that I love. And then I always go with the cannelloni or pollo panini. She always goes with a pasta — gnocchi or pollo limone. You really can’t go wrong. It’s bright, cheery and warm inside the building — makes for a lovely Sunday brunch.
My brothers, younger than me with basic American taste buds, hate it here — far too traditional for them. So, I suppose it’s very palate based. Maybe not the best restaurant for children.

We went to Lidia’s on a «tasting Groupon»
For two: Bottle of wine (many choices), caesar salad, endless pasta trio and a small tiramisu
The service was in the right place at the right time, but the leader (there is a service team) was clearly operating by rote and extremely disengaged with his food-​service-​is-​how-​I-​pay-​my-​bills situation.
Anyway — the trio consisted of three very different pastas which are apparently are frequently changed up.
I loved our Groupon intro and would not hesitate to go back for a wider menu experience

My husband and I opted to go to Lidias for restaurant week since he had never been before. I’ve been there for brunch in the past and had good meals, so I thought it’d be a nice place to take my Italian hubby. We both selected the prix fix menu with wine pairings. ($ 35 + $ 22).
It was apparent when we sat down that they were understaffed. The hostess began taking our drink order because our waitress was busy. When the waitress finally got to our table, we told her that we wanted to do the wine pairing and she offered us a few tasting options. They had a decent wine selection, and both her recommendations were delicious.
We both started our meals with caesar salads. The salads came out and the plates were a little sloppy in appearance. They were over-​dressed and way too big for a starter salad, and the croutons were soggy as if they had been sitting in the dressing for a while. At this point, we hadn’t seen our waitress in a long time; maybe 15 minutes had gone by and we were nearly done with our salads before the wines came.
For the main course, I selected the gnocchi and grilled sausage. The sausage was made in-​house and was very flavorful. The gnocchi, however, was so burnt it was like eating dehydrated, crunchy noodles with a dense chewy inside. Very unappetizing and I was unable to continue eating.
My husband had the pasta trio, which is a table-​side serving of three different pastas. The first was a spiral noodle in red tomato sauce, which was good. The pasta was cooked al dente and the sauce wasn’t too sweet. The second pasta was gnocchi in a sage cream sauce, also good. The third pasta was supposed to be linguine in a mushroom sauce, but the noodles were extremely under-​cooked, some of them still clumped together at one end, and there wasn’t any sauce in the pan. Even the server commented on the lack of a sauce. It was inedible.
Again, our waitress was gone for a long time and one of the nearby servers noticed that we weren’t eating our meals and we were actively searching for our waitress. He came over to our table and we explained the situation. He was really nice and immediately went to find the manager to get it fixed. In the meantime, our waitress did stop by and we explained again to her. She also went to find the manager. The manager came over to our table almost immediately. She was very kind and apologetic, indicating they were having a very bad day in the kitchen. She offered us new plates of food, but at this point we weren’t very hungry and still hadn’t eaten dessert. The manager offered to pay for our meals and dessert. I had a Nutella tart and my husband had tiramisu, both yummy, but too large to finish.
Before leaving, our waitress told us we should come back, especially after they had plans to remodel in the near future. Not sure that we will after this experience…

My hubby bought a groupon for this place, so we tried it tonight. We were going to go with a group of friends, but they only allow 1 groupon per table.
Valet was $ 7 and they park your car right in front which is convenient. Walking in, they had 2 hostesses who were very pleasant. The décor is modern. Our server was really nice and attentive. I think his name is Chando? I appreciate it too when the server offers to box leftovers instead of customers having to ask for boxes. I guess I feel like I’m not imposing when they offer to do it.
As we were seated, he filled our water glasses and talked to us about the groupon, which included a bottle of wine from the $ 32 list (which is possibly their cheapest wine selection). The selection here is pretty extensive. I really enjoyed the bread basket with the garbanzo and cannelini bean hummus. I think that’s what they were. My husband got the soup of the day which he said was just ok. Nothing special. My caesar salad was also the norm but there was so much of it, which was a waste.
I like the pasta tasting trio, which our server said varies daily depending on the chef’s selection. We had the paparrdele w/​sausage and cabbage, gemelli with spinach and ricotta and ramp, pea, asparagus ravioli. All tasted pretty good. My fave among the three waa the pappardele and my hubby liked the ravioli. I did notice our server called the gemelli a fusilli but they do look pretty similar, and I didn’t really mind bc either way, the dish would prob taste the same. The servers came around with the food efficiently and I felt like I was at an all you can eat brazilian steakhouse only with the chip always on green side. No complains though because we were able to take our food to go.
We also ended up taking the tiramisu to go and actually haven’t tasted it yet. It looked good! Price wise, if we didn’t have a groupon, I think the bill would’ve been $ 104 plus two tiramisus, so the groupon was prob a 50% off deal. Overall, I would recommend the food we had and the service.

3.5 stars
We stumbled upon Lidias after a full meal. My fiances mom is really into Lisia so we decided to check it out for dessert.
Upon entrance we realized we were probably underdressed for the occasion, everyone seemed to be slightly more well dressed. We were seated for dessert with minimal wait time.
Since we were already full from dinner we opted for dessert and coffee only.
We definitely weren’t disappointed with the dessert. We ordered the tiramisu and the nutella custard, both of which was rich and delightful. To drink, I had a decaf cappuccino with the in house coffee bean they offered and my fiancé had a double should of espresso which GIANT. It was practically a cup of really concentrated coffee. He was definitely awake after that! Anyways, we definitely enjoyed the taste of the beans, it had a unique toasty flavour.
So, the reason I’m bumping this place down to a 3.5 instead of a 4 was because the service was not the greatest. The server we had at our table was very nice, but after she realized we were only ordering dessert, we felt her attitude changed slightly as she became less attentive. And near the end of our meal she shoved us the bill prior to us asking. Of course that brought her tip down.
Later as we walked out we noticed that there was a collection of Lidias books on sale with her «autograph» in the front covers. Since my fiancé’s mother loves Lidia, we decided to buy one for her. Wrong decision!
Let’s just say… The process of getting this book took longer than our meal! And I was giving the wrong change which prolonged the entire fiasco.
So, overall good dessert, can’t say much for the regular savoury food but the service was definitely odd and questionable.
Might try this place again for the savoury food.

Lidia, you let me down.
I’m a huge fan of Lidia Bastianich, love her books, love her recipes, love her shows, and love most of her restaurants. So when I had the opportunity to visit Pittsburgh recent was to make reservations at Lidia’s Pittsburgh. Literally speaking, as soon as I finished booking my hotel I went to Open Table to make my reservation at Lidia’s.
So, my daughter and I visited on a Saturday night in February. Our first impression was the $ 7 valet parking fee. What? I’m from New York City and I’ve never paid $ 7 for someone to park my car. No way could I support that, we drove a half a block further and found a nice spot on the street. I really didn’t get the impression that this restaurant was so upscale that the $ 7 valet fee is warranted. First disappointment of the night.
The restaurant was not very busy this night so we had a very nice quiet dining experience. After having a chance to browse the menu our waitress described for us the Pasta Trio, a selection of three fresh pastas, two local, one imported, served with a variety of sauces. My family and I are huge fans of Lidia’s restaurant in NYC named BECCO which also serves the Sinfonia di Paste, their version of the Pasta Trio.
The Pasta Trio is served tableside with unlimited portions of the three pasta choices of the night. For us these choices included Penne Ala Vodka, with imported penne, Fettuccini with scallions and carrots, and beef brisket ravioli in a butter sauce.
After reading several Unilocal reviews about this place we got the impression our best experience would be from the Pasta Trio. So we tried it.
The Penne Ala Vodka was average; the sauce was similar in taste to what I’ve had from Lidia’s jarred sauces. I would expect so much more from the in-​person experience. The pasta itself was more than al dente; it was on the tough and chewy side. The fettuccini pasta was delicious, very thin and I liked the scallions and carrots sauce. There may have been more to the sauce but I don’t recall at this point. The last of the pastas was the beef brisket ravioli, WOW, this was delicious! Love it! Ok, I don’t normally get this excited about pasta but I loved this one, I want to make this one myself at home.
So to sum up the Pasta Trio, one hit (the brisket), one miss (the penne), and one eh? (the fettuccini). Having tasted so many of Lidia’s dishes at this point I set the bar high for her restaurants. Lidia’s Pittsburgh sadly didn’t deliver up to these expectations.
The atmosphere is nice, warehouse décor with exposed trusses on the ceiling, the staff was friendly and very well informed about the menu, but the overall experience just comes up average. The flavors just were not there for us.