Mamma Mia Tuscan Grille

I have mixed feelings about this place. I will start with the positive. It is lovely inside. The décor and furniture are very classy and there was a roaring fire in the fire place making the place feel warm and cozy. My husband and I commented to each other shortly after we were seated how nice we thought the place was and how we would love to come back in the summer to enjoy the outdoor patio overlooking the river. We ordered an appetizer, a bottle of wine and two meals. The food came out in a reasonable amount of time and was absolutely delicious. We had the bruschetta, fettucine alfredo, and chicken picatta.
Now for the not so positive. While our waitress was friendly and provided good service, she just didn’t have the class that I expected from this seemingly fancy restaurant. She seemed awkward and nervous. She didn’t present the wine properly and when she poured it she left the bottle and both glasses on the end of the table almost out of our reach. The place was literally empty when we arrived. Granted it was only 5:30 on a Saturday but I would have expected a least a few people to be there. Two tables were seated after we arrived but that is all we saw in the two hours we were there. This surprised us because of the location, and the length of time they had been in business. I guess I expected more atmosphere. But, the real kicker that threw me over the edge was the credit card surchage on our bill. The owner passes along this fee to his patrons — regardless of the amount of your bill. We spent about $ 85 on dinner and were charged a $ 4 credit card surcharge! This was not told to us until our bill came and I was completely shocked! I wanted to take the charge out of the tip but that isn’t fair to the server. My husband and I decided that while we enjoyed the food, we probably won’t ever go back.

Friday night — only group in the restaurant. Cold atmosphere and cold overpriced food. Will not go back.

After seeing the sign in downtown Rochester for this restaurant, I was excited to try it. It was a Saturday night at 7pm. As we approached the door we thought it might be closed because there was no sign of any humans inside. So, we were shocked when the door was open. Once inside, the waitress asked if we had reservations and I had to laugh. But we were seated promptly. The food was good. I was very happy with my order. The weirdest part was that there were never any other people in the restaurant. Gorgeous inside and a great location. The prices were a bit high. My husband had a filet for $ 36 and it did not come with any sides. And the waiter did not mention that. Then when we got the bill there was a note on the folder stating that they had an ATM and there would be a surcharge for credit. We asked and waiter stated that he would not charge it. I am puzzled how this place stays in business with no customers. Overall I thought it was ok. I won’t go back though because being the only people there was just so strange.

Let me save you the frustration and money by saying don’t ever have a party here. Baptism event for 40. Buffett. Ran out of food with 8 people still not fed. They said «oh we made just enough for 40 people»… Took at least an hour to get food to the rest of the party all while the chef was bitching from the kitchen that I made him make more. Oh yes hottest day of the year with broken air condition. Also
Good luck getting a hold of anyone. Renee is great though I will say that. Her customer service is the reason why I chose this place. There was also a waiter, just started a few weeks ago– he was great too. Too bad he had to be the middle man of this circus. He is the ONLY reason I gave a full 20% tip. The food was pretty good (when I got to eat some at home since they didn’t have enough there!). So sad to see such a nice place with good food not being managed. Look at the reviews and make a change! Obviously the owner doesn’t care.

I got take-​out for this location. To order by phone, I did have to wait a bit — I’d say about 15 minutes for someone to return to the call. I was driving, so I wasn’t as irritated as I would be if I was in a hurry.
Once I got my order in, I was quoted 30 minutes for the food. It took about 45 minutes, but the waiter that ensured me throughout my wait was very warm and personable — certainly made up for those extra 15 minutes.
As for the ambiance of the place, this restaurant is adorable. I’m a little sad that I didn’t eat there instead. The place has a full bar, a fireplace, a veranda overlooking the Paint Creek Trail — it truly is a nice place to have a dinner date.
I got a number of dishes to share with a friend — but of what I tried (Chicken Artichoke Pizza), the food is great. Large chunks of chicken and artichoke with alfredo sauce and pizza. It’s definitely not for the calorie-​counting individual, but it certainly was well-​prepared.
Hopefully this place turns itself around because it’d be a shame to see it go.

I tried really hard to like this restaurant. Unless generally serving dry food in an empty room is what they are going for, this restaurant needs a makeover. While the first piece of bread we had almost tasted like Kruse and Muer, I was quickly shown otherwise; our next few were rock hard as soon as they cooled down. Could play drums on the table. The salmon was slightly overcooked, however the polenta underneath it was so dry I wasn’t even sure that’s what it was. The sauce with the frutti de mare was decent, though not unique, however the seafood was clearly straight from the freezer. The chicken in the chicken piccata was dry as a bone. Our waiter (who I believe was also the manager) seemed to realize his fate. While he started the night wearing a dress shirt with a dressy sweater vest over it, halfway through our meal he had taken off the sweater, then later he untucked his shirt, and lastly he added a baseball cap. Best way I can describe our entire experience: while discussing what movie to see during dinner, my mom suggested The American Sniper, and I said that I don’t like doing sad things on vacation. My mom replied, «what do you mean you don’t do sad things? You came here.»

How come I can’t give ¹⁄₃ of a star for this mismanaged, understaffed, overpriced disaster of a restaurant?
So it’s our friends anniversary and we have reservations for 6 people at 7, running late as we usually do we finally arrive at 7:30, our friends have been seated since 7 and we’re given the wrong bottle of wine, being polite they drank what was served. I asked for a beer selection and was told they have Leinenkugel but not sure which one. After waiting on our waiter/​host/​bartender/​busboy for 20 minutes without an answer I decide to walk over to the bar and take a look for myself and what a wreck this bar is, limes spilt in the cooler beer bottles just jumbled and tipped over, receipts and garbage on the floor and liquor bottles everywhere. So on to the over cooked/​under cooked sloop that took an hour and a half to be served. The food may have been better prepared had the chef/​busboy/​waiter not been out clearing tables and taking orders. With ¾ of the restaurant empty spending almost 3 hours for dinner on a Saturday is ridiculous!
With the right staff and management this could/​should be a nice spot but unfortunately it will probably be closing its doors soon.

Bait-​and-​Switch: First we ordered a Belle Glos Pinot Noir (retail ~$ 30) from their menu and they brought us a Meiomi Pinot (retail ~$ 19) and insisted that it was the right wine. It’s made by the same company but is not the same. Then I ordered the 6-​oz filet and they brought me a thin piece of ribeye. When I mentioned it to our server, she said, «Well, I typed ‘filet’ into the computer.» So whether it was a mistake in the kitchen or purposeful switch because the chef assumed diners would not know the difference, I’m not sure. But either way, the server still charged us for a $ 30 filet and made no attempt to make the situation right. The restaurant was almost empty; now we know why. We will not be back.

I tried this place about 2 weeks ago; the food was good (I ordered eggplant parmigiana) and it was served on a good timing.

Hidden gem! New chef about a month ago. Awesome! Great personal service. Beautiful setting.

This place has the potential to be a good restaurant. Great location in downtown Rochester, nice atmosphere, very clean and updated. However it was jus so bad… so so bad. We made reservations but they were not even needed because we were the only people in the dining room the entire time we were there. They do have a nice patio that overlooks the river that would be nice to sit on in the warmer months. The menu looked good at first glance. All dinner entrees come with your choice of soup or salad (ceaser, or mixed). The bread was good. We ordered a bottle of wine, and the waitress brought it over and presented the label to us and then took forever to try and find the year on the label. I dont care about the year. The bottle was a twist off, so when she brought out her corkscrew to open the bottle I told her that. She then proceeded to use the knife on the corkscrew the try and cut off the imaginary foil that was not on the bottle because it was a twist off. She just frayed all the edges of the metal so when she eventually figured out what she did she had to go get a napkin to twist open the bottle. It was pretty sad watching and I felt bad for her but I don’t know how many times I can tell someone «Its a twist off» Obviously the servers have no wine training. She asked us what a pinot noir was like. Seriously? I should be able to ask you that and you should be able to tell me. The salads took forever to make. She told us their salad person was 78 years old… I ordered the ceaser and she told me that they make their own dressing and its fantastic. Well it was not fantastic. It tasted like straight up anchovies with lemon and oil… the dressing was so so so fishy and awful. And i typically prefer my ceaser to be made with anchovy. I ordered the seafood fettuccine and my fiancé ordered the crab cakes. The fettuccine was disgusting. The scallops didnt even look like scallops, id never seen scallops like that before. They were tough and awful. The fettuccine also had crab in it but it was like they just took a crab cake and crumbled it up and mixed it in. It was so disgusting. My fiancé was also unhappy with his dinner. he said the sauce they put on his crab cakes tasted like salty mayo. We obviously did not stay for dessert but everything was so slow that if we did we probably would have been there for another 2 hours.
Needless to say we will most likely never be returning unless some major changes are made.

NOTE: Mamma Mia is listed on Unilocal twice (with and without Tuscan Grille in the title) so I’m posting on both so everyone has the benefit of the review
I am really sad to write this review because the food here was once (and maybe sometimes still is) awesome. In fact, if you had asked me on 2÷13÷14, I would have told you Mamma Mia was in my top 5 favorite restaurants in Rochester. Unfortunately, I had one of the worst experiences at a restaurant… ever… which ruined any love or loyalty I had for the place. If you’re not interested in reading my long, hilarious recap I will summarize these key points: We waited 2 hours to be seated, the restaurant was completely understaffed, the food arrived cold or burned, and the waiters were both rude and unprofessional. Entrees are fairly expensive yet the restaurant is usually empty and while the interior is beautiful, I don’t anticipate Mamma Mia will be around for much longer… for good reason.
6:30pm on Valentines Day. We didn’t have a reservation but were willing to wait because the food that we had back in July was that awesome and their hours are so strange, even when they say they are «open» they are often closed. Case in point: we tried twice during normal business hours to get dinner and both times they didn’t answer the phone and the doors were locked. Thankfully, they were open today and looked fairly busy. There were 3 sets of couples in front of us.
7:30pm — Despite the appearance of empty tables and booths, nobody in the lobby had been greeted yet. A waitress came out once to look at us and stack some menus then turned around and left without saying a word. The couples in front of us said they had reservations for 7pm and still have not been spoken to. Everyone stared at each other in disbelief.
7:45pm — An older Italian fellow (dressed in a suit, so I would assume he was the owner/​manager) comes out to greet us with a big smile. «We are doing all we can.» he says in his European accent, still not taking names or asking about reservations. When one couple asked when they would be able to sit down he said «I can seat you but your food will not come any faster.» We all looked at eachother, apparently reservations are a moot point here. Finally, someone asked for a drink so the dude started taking orders and we all clutched our imported beers and house wines and gabbed about the good times like when you could go to a restaurant and sit down within an hour or two of arrival. The menu-​stacking waitress came out again to announce to the group «We’re not ready for this» and then scurry away.
8:00pm — We have literally been standing for 1.5 hours and only two couples have left the island. Thankfully we’re all a little drunk and have invested too much time to walk away now. It’s like one of those car challenges where you haven’t showered since Monday and dammit, you want to win that grand prize. A few new couples show up and ask us what time our reservation is for. We just laugh and laugh.
8:30pm — Table. Bread basket. The owner/​manager reminds us to «use the honor system» in regards to our drinks, apparently he doesn’t know the English word for «Two hour wait = On the house.»
8:45pm — Our orders are taken and I’m getting the gnocchi that was heaven on earth from our previous trip. My date is getting the veal which is highly recommended by the waitress.
9:20pm — Food is served. We notice that a couple that was seated after us is already eating. We shrug it off and grab our forks for the moment that we have all been waiting for… and the veal is cold. And my gnocchi is burned. And the waitress is never to be seen again.
9:40pm — We literally had to flag down another staff person to go get our waitress. I show her the gnocchi which is crunchy and smells like a dog’s ear. Someone in the kitchen deliberately flipped every potato dumpling over so that the burned black side didn’t show in the candlelight. The waitress apologizes profusely and asks if we would like to wait for another one. The irony is lost on her. My date and I admit that we’re full on dinner rolls and would just prefer a refund. With the wine, our bill comes to $ 20.
10:00pm — My date asks me if I want to order a pizza or something. I cry a tiny tear for Mamma Mia and my dreams of Tuscan Grilles everywhere.

The food was edible. If you like salt. The appetizer we ordered we scallops wrapped in salmon and bacon. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Salt! The soup was seafood bisque. Salt. The service was so slow that we had to ask the owner (?) or manager (?) matri’d (?) for our soup, which he told us was on the way. When we got it ten minutes later it was barely luke (sp?) warm, we sent it back. When it came back warmed it was like a big salt lick. After our soup and 20 minutes had passed we had to ask the same guy for our entrees. Mine arrived again lukewarm. My husband’s was cold. I don’t mean not hot. I mean cold. The service was horrible. We got here for our 6:30 reservation at 6:15 and it is 8:34. We just got our bill. We had an appetizer, soup and entrée. Crazy! BTW, we have a seat by the door (:() and there has been a wait all night, but we have counted at least 10 tables available all night! Poor management! Another patron just asked me what site I was reviewing this on b/​c her service was so bad and their food was barely warm too! Good luck if you try this one. We won’t be back!

Husband and I were in the mood for some pizza but didn’t want the typical takeout. Ended up going to Mamma Mia and having delux pizza, crabcakes, wine, and topped it off with some tiramisu and cofee. Tiramisu and cofee deserve a five star!
The restaurant is big. We came around 6:30−7 on a weeknight and were the only ones there. Then a couple other couples arrived. I was surprised this place is not busy. Perhaps the location and marketing is to blame, because the food and service are above average. I would definitely return.
We went in the winter time, but it looks like they have a nice balcony for outside dining in the summer time. I look forward to that.

My experience unfortunately was very similar to M B.‘s — I just wish that review would’ve been posted before we went there!
We arrived right at our reservation time and were practically the only people in the restaurant — yet it still took several minutes for anyone to even show up at the host stand to greet and seat us.
Once we were seated, we ordered drinks. (The staff seemed a little confused, as we had three people try to take our drink orders… but better than no one, I suppose.) Our drinks arrived, and the Grey Goose martini came with bugs inside. TWO BUGS. So we sent it back — the server did not seem shocked or embarrassed in the least and gave us only a quick apology when he brought back another one. The second martini smelled fruity … and definitely did not contain Grey Goose. We debated sending it back again but decided to push through our dinner — looking back, we should’ve just left.
Oh and, not only were we charged for the martini — pretty ballsy considering it initially had bugs in it – but were also charged extra for the Grey Goose that was supposedly in it.
We ordered the calamari appetizer and it was good. Not the best we’ve ever had but certainly not the worst. We also had soup and salad before our dinners — the salad was fine, but easily could’ve been from a bag of mixed greens. The soup was incredibly salty with a meatball that tasted like it had freezer burn.
Our dinners arrived and the pizza was delicious, although the server used the pizza plate to push the salad I was still eating out of the way. The veal saltimbocca was fine. When we were getting our leftovers to go, our server was clearly struggling with putting the pizza into the box so I offered her my fork to help — and she took it, joking that I probably didn’t want her to touch my pizza with her grubby hands. Not really a joke you want your server to make! (And then she kept the fork — guess she didn’t want me to finish the slice of pizza I still had on my plate.)
We had also ordered glasses of wine with dinner — a chardonnay that we drink often. When our wine arrived, it came with a nice, healthy pour — but of some cheaper chardonnay that wasn’t what we had ordered. But you can bet we were charged for the more expensive kind!
I really, really wanted to like this place. It’s beautiful inside — good ambiance and great location. I imagine the patio is great in nicer weather. And the pizza was good. But… that’s about it. I’m willing to overlook an issue or two, especially at a less expensive place. But I can’t get over the shadiness of serving a different wine/​liquor than specified but still charging for it. Don’t waste your money!

My husband and I had 6pm. Saturday night reservations for dinner. Upon arrival there was no hostess at the stand. After several minutes, I left the gathering few to seek out anyone to greet and seat us. Since the place was empty (other than two groups of maybe 10 teenagers each for «Homecoming»), the hostess asked, «two for dinner?». She obviously didn’t need to check a reservation for a nearly abandoned restaurant. Since the weather was mild for October we chose to eat outside on the patio because the two Homecoming groups took up the floor space in front of all of the booths. They were loud and jubilant and we didn’t want to practically be part of their group. It took 10 minutes for our server to show up and take a water and wine order. 10 minutes later she returned with beverages. 10 minutes again and she took our order. We ordered an entrée and accompanying salads, no appetizers. After 20 minutes I got up to search out any waitstaff for our salads and bread, being concerned that our meals were due out any time ahead of salads. We were starting to feel rushed. Nobody came out to check on the 3 patio tables. Finally, over an hour later, our meals came. My dish did not come with any sauce as described. I asked and waited for it. Meanwhile, as I cut into my steak to find it uncooked, my husband consumed his dinner. When I flagged the manager for help he offered their bernaise sauce for free when my meal came back. By this time we are beyond «pissed» and laughing at the comedy of errors Mama Mia was. The manager/​owner Dr. Attalah (yes of the Heart Center across the street on Main), argued with me that they were five star and not McDonald’s. He boasted that he just came back from Paris and he was going to put a sign on the door to «eat and enjoy», or some other drivel that did not make sense or address his poor service, poor management and dropping the ball 10 times over. He had no apology, no amends, no encouragement to come back for a better experience. NEEDLESS TO SAY, WE WILL NEVER GO BACK AND DISCOURAGE ALL FROM «eating» at MAMA MIA. In this economy, there are a lot of other fine and affordable restaurants in the area that offer good food, good service, value, ambiance and they value and respect their customer. Patrons around us were complaining and another group got up and left when we answered their question that, «yes» service was really slow! I could go on, to pretty much tank this restaurant, suffice it to say, it is not worth it. Save your time, your money, your digestive/​bowel system. Italian Garden, Alfocino, Lelli’s even Olive Garden or Carraba’s are better Italian type dining choices.

Amazing Date Night Experience.
How is this GEM not listed in Unilocal!??Ok, so when I came here it was with my Dad, not a date, but if you want a fantastic, romantic place to go and either get some drinks, dinner or dessert, head to this place!
Ambiance looks like something right out of an Italian Travelog. Richly appointed and detail everywhere you look. Dimly lit with a view out the back over the balcony into the woods really makes this place, and yes, you may sit outside if you wish.
We had a Deluxe Pizza and split it. It was about the size of a medium pizza and was done to perfection in their pizza oven. Great pie!
The young lass that took care of us was chatty, friendly, pretty and flirty. I think we tipped over 20%
I can’t wait to try out some of the other things on the menu, THIS PLACE IS A FIND.

I really, really wanted to love this restaurant, but alas, they are off my list. While seated promptly (it was pretty empty), we waited, and waited, and waited just to order. Then we waited and waited, and waited before getting anything to eat. No apologies for the delay, as, I believe, this is the norm for this restaurant. Really, customers should not have to wait almost an hour before getting a piece of bread and a salad. Then, of course, came more waiting before the meals were served. I can’t be totally sure, but I think we were in the restaurant for an hour and five minutes before our entrees came. My house salad was mediocre, as was my husband’s pollo Genovese. I had the Tuscan salmon, which was very good. The spinach on it did need a touch of salt and/​or pepper, neither of which was on the table. We left without ordering coffee or dessert, because it was getting dark (we were outside) and we desperately didn’t want to have to wait anymore. My husband reminded me that when we were at Mamma Mia this spring for Mother’s Day, they had messed up my son’s order badly and were so slow to remake it that we were all finished by the time his meal came back. Nice ambience, potentially good food, but they need to work on their service process.