Filippi’s Pizza Grotto

This place was fantastic. Fast Italian food at a great price. Waitress was a sweetheart and reminded me of my mom. She made sure that I was full.

Good dinner for a large group! Super fun to write on a wine bottle and have it hang in the Restraunt. Pizza was good and the garlic bread is great

OMG! .Meatballs just like Grandma’s! So yummy. Ordered extra cause hubby keeping eating mine. His veal scaloppini & ravioli was awesome as well! Jenifer was a great server!

This is American style Italian food. If you have ever been to Italy you know that you won’t find any food like this anywhere. It’s bland and does not have any taste. Service is slow and unfriendly. I cannot understand how the restaurant survived. Nothing is fresh or homemade! There are better choices in little Italy!

Came here on a Saturday night not too long ago, sure it was busy but I am sure every location would be during the weekend. Service was good we got attended fast and enjoyed our time. food was more than great as well as the drinks, one of the highlights of my trip. Definitely need to come back sometime.

It wasn’t too busy when we came in on a Sunday night. I had the Linguini with Clams and it was alright. It didn’t really stand out or was amazing. I tried my friend’s Shrimp Filippi which was a lot better. There was a lot more to it like mushrooms and other spices. I also tried my other friends meat ravioli and they were bomb. Wish I ordered that instead!
Prices are decent and service was great. Would definitely come back/​recommend to everyone!

I do not know what all the fuss is to want to eat here.
I ordered the veal scaloppini which came out cold, tasted as if it had been reheated from yesterday.
Cappuccino was disgusting and luke warm.
All in all, I would not eat here again.

Yes the line is long, Saturday. But the wait not as. The market is a great excuse to shop authentic Italian while you wait in line. Interesting pockets of dining sections. We got the darker more romantic one. The ½ carafe of wine is pretty damn big-​like two glasses worth! Can be split for two, ask for extra glass, they are like 2 oz. shot glasses.
This place is by no means high class gourmet, so don’t expect it. This is probably what an authentic Italian Restuarant was all about– lots of customers, chaotic kitchen, Italians yelling orders and getting some «Soup Nazi» attitude– though, our server was super sweet. It’s about the «feeling» of being here and belonging to something unique.
Our Veggie pizza was perfect. Crust bottom slightly crispy, while soft and fluffy dough. A bit chewy and tough at times, so those with falsies take heed! Although, I will say they could use a little more garlic and seasoning-​a bit too bland. A little red chili peppers, Parmesan and garlic can help! I also appreciated the more finer ground chili peppers as they come out of the shaker and distribute much better than whole ones!
I’d definitely come back and pass it on for others. I had a positive experience-​Thank you!!!

Very popular and busy. Line was out the door and parking almost impossible on a holiday Saturday evening. Unless you get very lucky you will have to park in one of only a handful of valet parking on extremely busy days.
The line took about 30 minutes, which is no longer than just writing your name somewhere and waiting.
Ordered spaghetti & meatballs, pepperoni pizza, antipasti salad, carafe of Sangria and Spinoni. All was excellent. The carat of Sangria was huge (although light, but tasty).
Don’t bother ordering extra cheese on pizza because the pizza is old school Italian, with like triple cheese. The spaghetti is traditional which means watery sauce, so if you’re used to your own drier spaghetti you make then expect it this way instead.

We went on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, the location is inside a store. It had a casual setting, definitely not modern. There are also bottles hanged in the ceiling. Its cute.
The customer service is very friendly and helpful. This is also a family friendly restaurant, don’t be afraid to bring your kids.
The food is great, very generous portions for the price you pay. I ordered the lasagna with meatballs. The lasagna cost about 12 bucks but I shared this with a friend so practically 6 dollars a person. It is pretty cheap. The meat sauce was so good, very tasty and savory. We also ordered garlic bread on the side; it costs about $ 3. Again, portion is big and the garlic bed taste really good. It had a crunchy texture. Lastly, we rdered cannoli for desert. It was alright; it was more on a the bland side.
Overall, if you wanna bring your whole family or plenty of your friends, I highly consider this restaurant. Its family friendly, customer service is wonderful, portions are big plus the price is very reasonable.

Every time my family is in San Diego we have to make the trip to little Italy for Filippi’s! We had 30 people in our family reunion group and the service was outstanding! There was never an empty glass and the empty plates were bussed quickly.
Definitely make sure to call ahead and make a reservation. Last night the line for a table extended outside and around the building at 6pm!

Filippis serves run of the mill production line amer-​italian slop. This stuff would be laughed out of Chicago, Boston or NYC. It’s perplexing that San Diegans support this level of culinary incompetence… The place had a line around the block which we waited through only to get doughy meetballs, flavorless sausage, nasty raviola, an antipasti that was pitiful and a margherita pizza that was basically cheezy-​bread. All served by a rude server in the most tacky décor (wood paneling and faux brick topped off with customer decorated wine bottles (some with catchy slogans like «You Bitch» (perhaps they had our server?) Is it just tourists eating here or is the city’s Italian population hiding out somewhere else? Service and food didn’t rank on a scale of 1−10… Ladies if your boyfriend takes you on a date here, dump him immediately.
Don’t bother with this restaurant, and for that matter little Italy… or at least beware… Little Italy has maybe 3 places serving anything remotely Italian.

The ambience is nice. Simple and classic. You walk through an Italian market to get to the dining area which was neat.
Lots of variety. Food is cheap with large portions but I wouldn’t say the food was to die for. Not high end or authentic but good simple Italian food if you’re looking for the basics. Ravioli and spaghetti is good but the margherita pizza doesn’t come with sauce and is on thick crust which was different. Too thick for our liking. Our server was not unhelpful whatsoever but it’s a good spot if you’re craving basic Italian food.

Italian food Heaven! The best way to describe Filippi’s. It has been here since 1950. Obviously they are doing something right.
Or a lot of things right!
Delicious food cooked perfect, great cannoli’s, great service.
It always smells so wonderful inside.
I love the old way it looks and the causal way of it all.
I love the grocery store in the front, and the way you have to walk through the shop to get to the restaurant. Just like the old days.

After hours of bike riding in scenic San Diego we stopped for an indulgence of pizza. We chose this place, and we chose rather wisely.
Pizza slices were good.
Not expensive.
Selection was diverse.
No complaints… it’s pizza… probably not hard to screw it up, but it was soooo good when it hits your lips…

2.5 stars | Maybe we came on an off night?
Unilocaled for pizza restaurants in the heart of Little Italy for a second dinner (whoops). Must walk through the shop to be seated. The line area smelled like a mix of dried fish and pungent cheese; BLEH! No line around 8:30pm on a Sunday night as we were seated immediately. Our waitress (didn’t catch her name) was not attentive, helpful, or friendly. It took a while to get anything we needed which seemed like a chore to her. She never came around with the bill, did not provide us complimentary bread until we asked (which wasn’t good unless she gave us the bad bunch. The little baguettes were stale and cold!), gave us a to go box for our pizza with a small bag that didn’t even fit the box… ugh.
Special 8 Meat Pizza ($ 19.95): The pizza only comes in a medium = 6 slices. I must say, the crust on this pizza is crispy and cooked to perfection! The rest of it was nothing special. The pizza itself was overloaded with sodium. I ate half of one slice and called it a day.
Word of advice: I would pass on Filippi’s and visit the other Italian restaurants surrounding the area.

Wow, what a disappointment. I had such high expectations. This place has been here for a LONG time and has such high ratings that one would expect to have a decent experience. But, on rare occasions, Unilocal does me wrong :(
We shared the lasagna and a pepperoni/​cheese pizza. The lasagna was decent but the pizza? In the land of amazing pizza, shouldn’t you try to be a competitor? The crust was bready and thick. No, not like a Chicago style, just thick. Ugh… we ate half of it and couldn’t continue. We left and went across the street and got a burger.
Sorry, but leave this one for the tourists who don’t know any better.

Say cheeeeeeeeeeeese! Wahnsinn, noch nie habe ich eine so leckere Pizza gegessen, auf der so viel Käse drauf war. Normalerweise mag ich ja eher dünne, knusprige Pizza mit wenig Käse, bei Filippi’s muss ich aber einfach eine Ausnahme machen. Die Bedienung war freundlich, aufmerksam und half uns auch bei der Weinauswahl. Als sie nochmal bei uns vorbei lief mit Knoblauchbrot und wir unsere Köpfe nach dem gemeingefährlich gut riechendem Brot verrenkten, kam sie, nachdem sie die Brote am Nachbartisch abgegeben hatte nochmal wieder, um zu Fragen, ob wir auch das Beot haben möchten. As nenne ich mal aufmerksam.
Das Preis-​Leistungs-​Verhältnis stimmt vollkommen und die Atmosphäre war gemütlich und heimelig. Der Hauswein hat super geschmeckt. Wenn man in der Nachbarschaft unterwegs ist, sollte man unbedingt reinschauen, denn vorne an im Eingangsbereich ist Filippi’s ein Deli mit Gewürzen, Nudeln, Ölen, einfach allem, was man zum italienisch Köchen braucht. Herrlich!

Football is back in season and that means, so is Filippi’s.
Sundays are made for friends, food and football, and we’ve made this spot our «family dinner» rendezvous point for a few years now. It’s cheap, there is a ton of food to go around and let’s face it, it’s not THAT bad. Authentic Italian? No. High end Italian? Not at all. Get your fix on a budget Italian? Absolutely.
We didn’t do our family dinner last week but after watching a few games I called in a takeout order for a pizza since I was in the neighborhood. If you haven’t had their pizza you better prepare yourself — it’s not really pizza. It’s best described as a poor man’s Chicago style with less sauce and more cheese. Thicker than a thin crust but slimmer than thick crust, this culinary creation has a bit of an identity crisis, which is sure to delight openminded and non-​committed pie lovers. Two slices will fill you up and you’ll be picking at the leftovers for a few days after. I love it but am the first to admit that it’s not for everyone and passionate pizza people should just keep walking… nothing to see here, folks!