Luigi’s Little Italy Tour

I booked this for my husband’s 50^th after buying a Living Social coupon. I read the reviews afterward and was a little concerned, but dove on ahead anyway and even arranged for 9 more of us to go at the same price! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. If you have reasonable expectations that helps. The portions are small, but it’s a «taste» not a «smörgåsbord»…think appetizers. We found Luigi to be delightful, in his stories, his manner, his accent, everything. The meatball at the first restaurant was to die for! The focaccia was very good, the pizza quite good, the pasta was alright. It was an experience, not a sit down 4 course dinner. I got to toss my own pizza crust for pete’s sake! I don’t know what the other people are complaining about. If you like Italian food and Italian people and people in general and you can take a brisk walk and enjoy the cool place where we live, you should love this tour. Some people are grumpy pants!

If I could give this less than one starr l would. Went to 2 Italian restaurants and 1 coffee shop the food was so so. I bought this tour on Groupon. Also beware at the end they say there are taxes that are not included in the tour price. I was charged an extra 9 bucks I’m going to complain to Groupon about this. Stay away from this tour and there hidden costs.

Bought a Living Social for two for $ 49.00. Last time I do that without checking reviews first so I take the blame for being stupid. The food was good but for the price I expected larger quantities. 1 meatball, inch of sparkling wine, 1 piece of pizza, 2 inches of beer, ½ cup pasta, 1 inch of wine. Dixi cup of coffee with gelato.
The cooking tips were nice as was the history of Italy and local food. Luigi is the opposite of charming. In fact, at times, he was a downright a**.
I probably would have let it go except for the end. He states that the coupon doesn’t include tax and tip so before you can leave, he extorts another $ 9.00 a piece from you. Ended up being $ 35.00 a piece. His profit margin is through the roof on this one. Good thing he does coupons as I think that is his only source for new business. Dummies like me!

Is there anything lower than 1 star?
Wow! I can’t say how disappointed I was in this place. I had high hopes and we thought it was going to be the highlight of our day. We had 7 (with 4 kids) and we were asked if we wanted «family style» where we all shared the food. «Sure» we said. He then asked how much we wanted. I thought he meant how much food or what kind but what he clarified was how much did we want to spend. I thought since we had some small eaters then maybe $ 15 — 20 per person so about $ 150 before tip.
Well a small plate of bread came out that was quickly devoured. No more ever came. Next a bowl of OK salad about the size of what you would get in one bowl at Olive Garden. It was gone and no more came. Then a plate of chicken meat cooked in an OK broth. (One small kid got a small bowl of noodles with butter for himself.) We all took a little chicken and I waited for the «main course» to come. Well, guess what — THAT WAS IT! We all ate off of small salad sized plates and were all still pretty hungry.
We never saw our waiter again but a new person came out and asked if we wanted desert. We were all hungry still so we all got a dessert which was good but nothing special. I was shocked I was about to pay $ 15 — 20 each for the small amount of food we had just had. Well…
When the check came it was priced out at $ 22.00 per person PLUS $ 8.00 each for the small desert we each had. That’s $ 210 for the food then they added a nice 18 percent tip on top of that and tax and it came to $ 270! Holy #$%@! It was a snack! It wasn’t even that good of a snack! I was drawn into the place by it’s cute appearance and then taken to the cleaners.
DON’T GO TO THIS PLACE! It must rely on the nearby tourist to stay in business. Unfortunately I was one of the suckers this time.

I love a good tour, I really do and sometimes a local likes to play tourist in her own town. Anyhow, I thought the Little Italy Tour would a fun activity for me and the better half to do for our anniversary… While it wasn’t the worst time, it also wasn’t the best.
Good: The meatball in the beginning is delicious!
Bad: You have nothing to eat it with except your mouth and it’s pretty big so everyone pretty much made a big mess
Good: Luigi tells you a bunch about little Italy and how it became to have such a big presence in Seattle
Bad: The streets are so noisy you can hardly hear him. I kept asking my husband «what did he say?» He was no help because he couldn’t hear either
Good: You get to try the homemade pizza and have a little beer
Bad: By this time people have to use the restroom — you won’t have access to a bathroom until another 30 mins or so
Good: You get to try some coffee w/​gelato
Bad: This is where the bathroom is. It’s down a bunch of hallways so by the time you’ve hit the head and came back to the group — it’s pretty much time to move on. Me to my husband: «what did I miss?» My husband: «not sure, couldn’t hear him»
Good: You get to check out Luigi’s restaurant, see how pasta is made, and slurp on some red wine
Bad: Under-​cooked pasta isn’t really my thing
Good: We had a voucher for a discounted tour
Bad: Don’t pay full-​price
Someone commented about how Luigi made them feel like they had to tip — while it’s not required it is appreciated. Come on, he just schlepped you through Pioneer Square teaching you about Little Italy and sharing some food. Be a decent person and leave a tip.
P. S. It should also be known, the lady who does the scheduling (via email) shouldn’t have «customer service» listed as a skill on her resume.

I was prepared that it won’t be very fun since I read the review on Unilocal already. Here’s what you will get for the food:
1) a piece of bread+meatball on top, sparkling wine
2) a slice of pizza + some beer
3) a small cup of coffee shot with very little vanilla ice cream (?)
4) very little pasta+ red wine
Here are the bad stuff…
1) You can’t really hear him given that he gives his tour on the street. With all the traffic and strangers passing by that yelled at him, you get distracted too easily.
2) He didn’t have any sound system like savor Seattle did, so ya again, you can’t hear him. He’s too cheap to get those to improve the quality of the tour.
3) You get very little food, and he does tell you that each person can only get one slice of pizza blah blah. and they prepared the exact amount for each person, so there’s no extra ever
4) The eating places are too small, such as his restaurant and the other café. Therefore, some people have to sit very far (ie cannot hear him again) or have to find themselves chairs to sit. Again, it’s awkward.
5) He talked way too much at the beginning on the street when it’s freezing outside. He should have spread it our instead.
6) The original price of the tour is $ 33, we bought the voucher for $ 26, he charged $ 3 for tax and $ 6 for gratuity, so we paid $ 35 total. yes, 6/​33= 18%, so he requested you to pay him 18% tip regardless how little food you get or whether you could hear him or not. Another thing is that I generally tip like 15% now, and for my Savor Seattle tour I tipped 20% because it was good. But for this tour? I’d pay NO tip. well, you heard me.
7) He will make sure you pay by standing by the door, and you can’t get out of the restaurant if you don’t pay him. He doesn’t even look at your voucher. I suggest you print your friend’s used vouchers and go to the tour, in that case you are only paying $ 9 for the amount of stuff you get, which is slightly overprice as well, but it’s okay.
In conclusion, if you’ve already bought the voucher. that’s too bad. I suggest you ask your friends to share the cost by printing extra vouchers for them since he doesn’t check them. All he wanted was his 18% tip…
I don’t recommend this tour since you get almost no food and you’ve actually learned everything that he’ll tell you in your history class. On the other hand, I highly recommend the Savor Seattle tour. It was like 10 times if not 20 times better than this tour, and I actually paid 20% tip cuz they’re very good, and we don’t mind tipping for good service. Bye buh, Little Italy tour. such a scam!

Wow, I can’t believe no one Unilocaled this place yet. My friends and I bought a Livingsocial for Luigi’s Little Italy Tour, thinking it would be as fun as the Savor Seattle Tours. This place is seriously three stars lower than those tours because 1) they overbook so many people that we could hardly squeeze around Luigi to hear him talk 2) his voice is really soft and every time a Ride the Duck tour or loud traffic passed by, you could forget hearing anything 3) the guide doesn’t really tell you the history of Little Italy but instead the history of Italy, which is a very general description 4) meager portions. Since so many people bought the Livingsocial for this, I guess he decided to cram at least 30 people into one tour. We tried to surround him while he stood in front of us talking but it was REALLY REALLY hard to hear him. He made the joke that IF YOU COULD ONLY UNDERSTAND 51%, of what he was saying, THEN THAT WAS good enough for him (WTF? I joined this tour so I could hear him 100%). He should get a microphone or a voice amphlifier if you’re going to cram so many people into a tour. People squeezed next to each other to barely get a glimpse of Luigi.
He told us some information of Italy’s history but really didn’t talk about the creation of Little Italy (maybe he did, but I couldn’t hear him since I stood all the way in the back and tried to stretch my neck to see above the tall people in front of us). He talked on and on for about 20 minutes and because we couldn’t really hear him, to us, it seemed like he was prattling on and on. The bonus of the food tour was the meatballs and alcohol but they only gave us meager portions (one meatball and one dinky slice of pizza). Since there were left over slices of pizza on our tray, we decided to split the slice between three people but then Luigi yelled at us because we weren’t suppose to eat the slice and was suppose to give our leftovers to the next table over. We would have saved the pizza but he never said anything about it. We went to a total of three places and during our walk, it was more like a march because people were competing to get to the front of the line so they could be the first to get the best position to hear him talk. At each different place, they served very small portions. If the livingsocial voucher costed about 20+ per person, I would think that they could afford to give more food. When the tour finally ended, Luigi stated that we needed to pay $ 3 for tax and $ 6 for gratuity. Isn’t gratuity amount the customer’s decision? If the tour in itself was not very good, I should have the right to decide how much I tip him. I definitely did not like that this was «mandatory.» Throughout the tour, he bragged about how great Italian food and culture was but by the end of the tour, he charged us mandatory gratuity, which is something you would never encounter in Italy. The total per person was about $ 35. I really didn’t learn that much about the city or about the food. Because it was so crowded, it was really hard to really enjoy this tour. If I were you, I would not join this tour for full price. For those who bought a livingsocial, you should return it.