Soprano’s

My friend and I had dinner Sunday evening. Food was incredible. My friend had lasagna. She said it was the best! Home-​made pasta made it extra special and the sauce was unbelievably good. I had the portabella mushroom and vegetables with pink sauce. It was fabulous. Fresh, not overcooked vegetables Great atmosphere, wonderful service. The owner came to our table to see how we enjoyed our visit. This place far superior to Sopranos. This Italian will definitely return this week.

New ownership — must have just been closed for renovations. Try the Sunday sauce — it’s amazing. Great service and fantastic food. Reasonable prices. So glad this place is in our neighborhood.

**THIS REVIEW WAS WRITTEN NOVEMBER 2012**
This place has recently gone under new management and I wish I could say it was for the better. The only good thing left about this place is Hector. He is always warm and welcoming.
What has changed you ask? No more focaccia bread or spread, vegetable tian (a lasagna of sorts — not good) instead of the regular fresh vegetables, and the fish dishes now have too much sauce which was over powering.
Most importantly the new owner is arrogant and doesn’t think she can do wrong. I sat here and witnessed her make a mistake and blame it on Hector. Lastly, a regular customer tells her not to change a certain item on the menu and when they walk out the door she says to go somewhere else. Seriously!!!
I doubt I’ll come back, but if I do, it will be because of Hector.

My husband and I joined my coworker and her friend for dinner (with a groupon deal) at Sopranos. It’s a small and cozy restaurant with a tiny bar area. Very intimate place, great service, and comfortable seating. This is our first time under the new ownership and we were impressed.
The food was great and reasonable priced for the quality and quantity. Dinner ordered were veal picatta, seafood ciabatta, shrimp scampi, and sausage with ragu pasta. No one complained about the food. All delicious and proportions were balanced. It was very flavorful. One suggestion I would make is that a few of their specials seem like they could be just part of the menu. In my opinion, they were typical and simple Italian dishes but I could be wrong. The best part is you can bring your own wine for a $ 10 corkage fee!
I will definitely bring my friends here and come back here again with the hubby.

I’ve been coming here off and on over the years and have seen this place go through many managers, and the food was hit and miss. Mostly I came because friends of mine were Friday night regulars.
Recently I returned to find that Sopranos now has a new owner and a fresh, new and simple menu! What a wonderful change! As always, Hector greeted me with warmth, and the owner (who also cooks) came out to say hello and to check on our meal, which was delicious! I’ve been here twice since the new owner has taken the helm and both times I was very pleased with my experience.
This is a very welcoming neighborhood restaurant with good Italian food. I’ll be back!

First off, maybe the establishment’s new owner could add «Filomena’s» on Unilocal.LOL. Just so she can start from a clean slate, I guess.
I purchased the Groupon. Per fine print, call to make reservations, which I did. We were asked to choose our table, we chose to wait for the corner one to be cleaned, since the ones available were close to the entrance. The owner, I think her name is Linda, was friendly. She looks stressed but confident, who wouldn’t if you were in her shoes? She’s a new owner, wanting to bring in more clientele. Wants changes for the betterment of the establishment, make it successful. She told us some snippets of her plans while waiting for our table. We brought our own bottle of wine with us this time, I asked if we can when I phone for the reservation. Corkage fee is only $ 10 like in Roman Cucina (another Italian restaurant within a short driving distance from where I live that I like!).
My roomie had a dinner salad and lasagna (he said ’twas feinitely beeter than Maggiano’s). I had the dinner special, the seafood fra diavolo. The seafood tasted fresh, and not frozen, the sauce does not overwhelm the dish, and the pasta was al dente. And OMG, they have fresh parmesan! Even Maggiano’s didn’t have that! We had chocolate chip cannoli for dessert, and it tastes good, I wish I had room for more than one!
When I posted a comment in Groupon on what I could suggest to the owner, she responded to me and did not take my words as criticism. This is how the exchange went:
Response to Your Groupon Comment
Hi Suelen,
Soprano’s has sent you this message in response to your feedback:
Soprano’s
(
): «Thank you for your response and I hope I can expand too. I know its small, but unfortunately when it is this small I need to have as many tables as possible to carry the salary and overhead costs. But you are so right… I need to expand, so keep coming so I can make that happen. Thank you so much for joining us for dinner and purchasing the Groupon.»
Your Comment
(March 24, 2013): «I hope you can make the place bigger to cater more dine-​in clienteles. We did not have anybody sit on the table next to us, but I could just imagine the awkwardness of inadvertently eavesdropping over other diners’ conversation because of the close approximation of the tables to each other.
If you’d like to respond to this message, please email
(do not reply to this email).

Ok, Groupon buyers — word of advice, MAKE A RESERVATION. No matter what day or what time it’s at, make a reservation unless you want to be scolded like a child. My boyfriend & I walked in on a Thursday night at about 6pm, it was a last minute decision to have dinner there so no, we did not have a reservation. But we figured at that time on that day of the week, there probably wouldn’t be a line out the door. We were right, there were literally 2 tables being occupied and 1 person sitting at the bar, however, because we did not read the fine print & make a reservation, we proceeded to be scolded like dogs who had just peed on the carpet… if I had a tail, it definitely would’ve been in between my legs. I was waiting for her to whip out a newspaper & start hitting me on the nose with it…
That being said, we were about to just leave considering that moment was obviously a total buzzkill, BUT we figured we already paid for the Groupon, we’re going to have to eat here at one point or another, lets just make it now & make the best of it.
So, I wish I could remember our server’s name, but I can’t — she was fantastic though. (She was NOT the one who scolded us, I am not going to put in my review who that was). Our server is also a pastry chef & the owner’s daughter so ask for her, and you’ll be in good hands. She really turned our whole night around & didn’t make us feel like some «stupid Groupon customers» like someone else did. She was very attentive, even when she got a little busy, she made great suggestions, and on top of it, she was friendly & easy to talk to.
We started with the calamari, which was delicious & the bread they serve is amazing — especially the «purple» one! Then I had a four cheese pizza & my boyfriend ordered a pasta dish they had on special the previous night. It was a shrimp & lobster pasta in a rum Alfredo sauce — he said it was one of the best pasta dishes he’s ever had! He thinks it should be on the menu permanently. My pizza was really good too! We didn’t have dessert, we were too full from everything else, plus we had to get going anyway, but we will save room for dessert next time (or at least get some to go)!
Service…didn’t start out on the best note, had it not been for our initial scolding, I would have given 5 stars… but our actual server gets 5 stars!
Food…delicious!
Will we be back… heck yes! Our «scolder» got lucky on this one. BUT groupon or no groupon, I will NOT come here without a reservation ;)

Groupon buyers… take note.
A little disappointed — mainly with my Groupon purchase. I’ve purchased many Groupons and other specials (LivingSocial
etc.) and I always read the entire deal to make sure it’s what we want. I always check in case alcohol isn’t included or any other deals such as happy hour, etc. So I read this one to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. There was specification that certain holidays weren’t included and happy hour wasn’t (I didn’t know Sopranos even had a happy hour) and other specials weren’t included. NO mention of alcohol not being included. I did see that it said $ 30 for Italian FOOD, so I assumed wine/​beer wasn’t included, but I thought they’d be more specific especially because of the amount of Groupons they sold and trying to promote a new «name» to keep the previous regulars. I would think the reason for the Groupon would be to bring in new business or keep the old business that was not happy about the turnover, therefore being a little more specific in the details.
We get seated right away, it was a slow night (picked up a little later), and it was nice to notice that they had more servers than previously. One of the main complaints with the previous owners was that the service wasn’t great, they usually only had 1 server on for the whole place (it’s not big, but still, if everyone comes in at the same time…). Our server was nice, he’s been there awhile, but he still got a little stressed when it got busy, but all the tables were not full, and there were still 2 servers and the owner helping behind the bar-​so why he seemed so busy baffles me, but the main issue I have is still with the Groupon and then ultimately the service.
So we ordered a margarita pizza — adding mushrooms (which I figured we’d pay for, which is fine, BUT when we got our pizza there were hardly any mushrooms on it, and my boyfriend even said something to me that there was a piece without any mushrooms. Really, if I’m paying extra for an extra item, make sure it’s on every piece — we were charged $ 1.25 extra for them, which like I said would be fine, but for hardly any mushrooms, not so much). and spaghetti and meatballs along with 2 glasses of house wine. We got the food, it was good (he said the meatballs were outstanding), probably better than before, but for sure comparable to the previous owners. But $ 1.25 for extra mushrooms and there were hardly any on the pizza is a little disappointing. Oh yeah, the bread prior the meal was really good too. I would have liked a little balsamic and oil offered, but the spread with it was tasty.
Then it started to get busy, and we were full, so we waved the waiter to get our bill. There was still no mention that wine wasn’t included on Groupon, and he knew we had one ((as the sign on the door states, mention it before seating ((which is actually kind of tacky to post the sign))). By then he’s a little over whelmed… but really. the place is small and NOW they have 2 servers plus the owner helping behind the bar, seating, etc, so not really sure why he was so stressed. So he brings our bill… The total owed was $ 14.89 as stated on the fancy groupon sticker.
It took me awhile to figure out the amount — mainly because the communication (the server lacked this) wasn’t there to begin with. The total amount BEFORE Groupon was $ 39.04 and total amount owed still was $ 14.89. I couldn’t figure it out at first…($ 39.04 less $ 30 would be $ 9.04) I know from being a server that the tax isn’t included, but still, the amount before tax was $ 36.15 so I subtracted the $ 30 groupon and added tax — it would still not have been that much. Then I realized the wine was $ 12 and the tax was $ 2.89 so that would be the total due. This is understandable, I was okay with having to pay for the wine. The issue was that we still had at least $ 6 to spend on food and wasn’t offered anything. I assumed the wine was included, otherwise we would have ordered a cheesecake (I love their cheesecake with the new owner), or a salad or something.
I’m mainly disappointed that I spent money for a Groupon for $ 30 worth of food and only got $ 24.15 worth of food and wasn’t offered more. I would have liked to be told wine/​beer wasn’t included, but I can let that slide, but I’m a little upset that nothing more was offered to take advantage of the entire amount. In fact, we weren’t even offered dessert to begin with, regardless of the Groupon. Upselling is a huge part of the business, and sad to say our server didn’t do any of it.
Was the food good? yes, Service? Okay, could be better. Will we be back? Probably not. I don’t want to be cheap but the whole experience disappointed me, gives me the feeling they don’t want locals or repeat business.
And oh yes… I still tip on the full amount of the food, I’ve been a server, I know this is important, but I still look for deals and this wasn’t one in my books with our experience.

The food is just a okay more like 2.5 stars, but the service is genuinely nice and I added the full star.
I had some chicken pasta with sun dried tomatoes and it was by far the blandest pasta dish I’ve experienced. My husband ordered the homemade sausage with broccoli rabe, which is a bitter vegetable and definitely an acquired taste if you’re not into bitter food. The food was sub par and we really wanted to like this place. The food was prompt, service was great even though they kept refilling out water with soda. We had to send our water back 3 times before they got it right.
Really, it had nothing to do with the service at all, we even ordered wine hoping to enjoy a different Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the food was a total disappointment =/

I probably first brought dates here in the earliest days, because I love hole in the walls.
My mom still lives in Costa Mesa and when I want to hook up with her this is a place we have come to several times. My mom always orders that con sartre dish and I am a floater. I love it all!
So last night, Thursday, we me the for dinner. I showed up first and the pleasant dark haired waitress helped me. She was friendly, she has a pretty smile, and she tolerated my sipping my soda for about 20 minutes waiting for my mom. Apparently this waitress’s mom bought Sopranos… But they intend to keep most everything the same. My mom received this similar explanation.
Food was great, I got the lasagna– amazing
My mom got her con Sartre and she mentioned it was different… No more cognac…
Still good, but different.

Food was ok but the service was bad.
A waitress and manager were complaining about a customer to other customers including us. We were there to dine not hear gossip.

Small Italian Restaurant near the end of the 55 FWY. Soprano’s offers some great deal, but the only downfall is that you cannot combine them. Here are some of their offers:
Monday-​Thursday: No corkage fee
Monday: Half off pastas
Tuesday: Half off House Wine
The owner stated that she’ll continuously come up with specials, so I will be patiently awaiting. The waiter was A+ and just the perfect balance of service! The bread they offered was warm and I absolutely loved the olive bread, yum!
Here’s my take:
Penne de Sarge: creamy with lovely bites of sun-​dried tomatoes.
Lasagna: fresh and packed with meat, cheesy!
There’s a small parking lot in the plaza, which offers plenty of parking spaces. Overall, Soprano’s is a nice family owned Italian restaurant with great personal service and delicious pastas. I can’t wait to come back and check out more of their entrees, till next time!

Italian Restaurant in Strip Mall.
New owner makes for a new vibe. Some good changes (ambiance) some not so good changes (egotistic attitude of owner). Food– unpredictable and unwashed. Vegi’s tasted like RAID. (yes, pesticides)
Hector is still there which is about the only thing this restaurant has going for them. He is warm and welcoming and knowledgeable and sincere and genuine. He will do his best to make sure your time there is worth while.
Wine is good– although inconsistent. Bianchi Pizza is delish (garlic, broccolini heaven– great dough). Get it togo, although from these reviews not sure if that’s a good idea unless you want to wait an hour.

Very DISAPPOINTED the first time I went in. I called in advance and they put me on HOLD for 15 min so I HUNG UP and tried again. The second time I called for take out they did not know who I was so I pretended to be a first time caller. So they quoted me a time to go in to pick up my take away food and turned out to be a disaster.
UNPROFESSIONAL STAFF DRINKING WHILE ON DUTY not attending to anybody that did not have a drink in their hand. Also, realized that other guests were being nelglected as well. Absolutley NO organization and NO general manager on duty. Took another HALF HOUR to get my food. Food was God AWFUL!
I hate writing bad reviews BUT in this case the public should be aware what they are getting into.
Stay away from Soprano’s if you want to have a nice meal.

Love me some Soprano’s (The TV show AND this restaurant). I can’t believe the poor reviews. To each his own I guess. The world would be B O R I N G if we all liked the same things.
This is a small restaurant located in a strip mall with a laundromat and a nail place next door. There are a couple of tables outside so we were able to bring our doggie with us. I’ve eaten here many, many times over the years and I cannot ever remember getting a bad meal here.
Soprano’s is kind of a hole in the wall… the kind that you have to walk through the kitchen to go to the unisex bathroom. This is NOT a «see and be seen» place where people like to hang around pretending to be rich and Chanel handbags and Rolex watches are required to get in the door. It’s a quaint neighborhood Italian place that serves food that is far superior to Pizza Ortica and Mama D’s IMHO.
Now, I’m no foodie expert. I know squat about Northern Italian vs. Southern Italian cuisine, I just know that I’ve like everything I’ve ever had here from pizza to ravioli to lasagna. The waitress brings brings bread to the table after you are seated and she will refill it if you request it. I never feel like they are trying to rush us out of there so they can turn over the table like they do at most of those jerk Newport Beach places.
It’s casual, no need to get dressed up and you can bring your faithful canine friend and sit on the itty bitty «patio».

The only reason a second star is assigned to what would otherwise be a one-​star wonder is that they refilled the generic Lipton-​type ice tea frequently rendering the service above average. But the refill on our kid’s drink had enough Grenadine in it to put as many curls into your straight hair as Shirley Temple had herself.
An order of garlic bread strangely resembled the slices in the complimentary basket only with a spread similar to what one would likely experience at a soccer team’s «spaghetti night» fundraiser.
It wouldn’t surprise me if snopes verified that this was the restaurant where the idea for DiGiorno pizza was born because anyone trying to separate a slice of this melted mess reflexively must think, «We gotta be able to do better at home.»
The marinara sauce covering the pasta side provided some nostalgia for the cafeteria line in which we queued back in elementary school.
The adjacent heap of over microwaved veggies had zucchini looking more limp than a Cialis-​starved nursing home. The only thing more overdone than the salmon was the framed fake retro family photo motif that covered the walls.
If you MUST eat at this restaurant, then ask if they’ll let you drink half of the 5-​gallon Cabernet bottle used for décor as you’ll need a big buzz to leave you feeling less bitter than the burnt garlic spinach tastes.
Never did we think it was possible that something could actually be worse than the final episode of the HBO TV series bearing the same name but this place indeed is as you will be craving a menthol cigarette for dessert just to take the taste out of your mouth.

My wife and I went back for dinner the Wednesday before New Years. My wife liked her food again. Me not so much.
I ordered some garlic bread (extra charge). I was expecting something along the line of split french bread toasted with garlic and butter. What I got was larger pieces of the strange bread that they give with the meal, lightly toasted with a little garlic. Don’t waste your money on this. My pasta dish was just OK.
My wife liked her food both times. Mine was good just once. The dinners didn’t include extras like a soup or salad, and the garlic bread was a disappointment. I won’t be back for dinner.
They do have great Monday through Friday lunch deals. Their «house» Cabernet is good. Take your chance, ¾’s of the time the food is good.

The more I go here the more I grow to like this place. The service is very friendly and I feel like if you are a regular you definitely get some special treatment.
I also appreciate how this place has a very european feeling to it. When I lived in Barcelona I appreciated the way that the waiters wouldn’t really bother you till you were ready, but some of my friends get easily annoyed by this.
The food isn’t stellar either compared to what I’ve had at other places but it isn’t bad either. I have always walked away mildly pleased with left overs for the next day.
It is small inside, and sometimes that is nice, but when you have the loud mouth couple next to you it sounds like they are right in your ear.
I think that a 3.5 would reflect accurately how I feel about this place. Good but not great.

My boyfriend’s sister’s birthday. One of his other sisters had a
coupon for spend $ 100 and get $ 50 off so we came here to try it out.
They are located on a little strip of stores. Their parking lot is small consisting of only probably 10 parking spots to share with the other 4 or 5 businesses located there. Luckily there is another small lot toward the back of the strip and it was 7 PM on a Sunday. Hearing that they have free corkage we brought two bottles of wine with us. Since we were a party of 10 and they were a small restaurant it took us awhile to get seated. Not everyone was there yet so it wasn’t much of a big deal.
When we finally got seated, we found out that if we used our coupon then we would have to pay the corkage fee so of course we chose to keep the wine for next time.
We ordered some appetizers (Bruschetta, Calamari Fritti, Antipasto Platter for Two and Rapini Cimino) and the server brought over some bread with spread to munch on. The spread was delicious and probably the best thing at Soprano’s. They kept bring over bread and spread when they saw we were low. Everything was pretty good except for the Rapini Cimino which was just okay.
We finished up our appetizers and the waiter still hadn’t come by to take our main course orders yet. I thought it was pretty strange. I saw him walking around, polishing dishes and not doing much and often wondered if he just simply forgot he still had to take our orders. Eventually after he came and we waited some more for our main dishes.
I ordered the Penne Reno and my boyfriend got the Linguini Vongole with lamb (white) sauce. I ended up switching my dish with my boyfriend’s. The Penne Reno was too plain for me but the Linguini Vongole was good. There wasn’t enough clams for me but it was decent. Everyone else thought their dishes were okay as well. nothing amazing. Most of us ended up taking home doggie bags at the end of the meal. Probably because we filled up on so much bread. lol we also had desserts, Cannoli, Crème Brulee and Cheesecake which were decent as well.
In the end, I don’t think I would come back here despite wanting to try some other things on the menu like the calzone and pizzas. The long wait times for our food and the lack of service from the waiter (the server did a great job, always refilling our waters and bring us more bread) and bland food is not worth coming back to Soprano’s.

We dined at Soprano’s during one of their «no corkage fee» nights. BYO = sweet! Too bad they failed to mention that no corkage fee is considered a «promotion» and that no other offers are valid, so we ended up not being able to use our $ 20 Costa Mesa restaurant gift certificate. That, or we could have paid $ 15 for the stupid corkage, even though everyone else was drinking their bottles sans fee. Annoying! Whatever, we thought — let’s just order something.
After perusing the menus while sipping on our bottle of wine, we decided on splitting an appetizer (eggplant parmigiana) and a melanzane pizza (eggplant). As we placed our order with our very friendly waiter, he mumbled something about the BYO wine offer and that he would be right back. When he returned, he informed us that in order to not be charged the corkage fee, we would EACH need to order an entrée. Huh? Interesting how this damn little «deal» has so many freaking catches! Additionally, this minor detail wasn’t mentioned anywhere, including on the tabletop card holders that mention «NO CORKAGE FEE, SUNDAY — THURSDAY! Nice to inform your diners about all your little special requirements. Total BS.
Oh well, we thought, and hoped that at least the food would make up for all the hassle. Since we each needed to order an entrée, we decided on the melanzane pizza, the spinacchio calzone, and the portobello and broccoli raab appetizer. Though their vegetarian options are fairly limited, these seemed like the most interesting choices on the menu.
First up was the free bread with an odd creamy olive spread (or at least that’s what it tasted like). The bread brought back bad childhood memories of eating Pizza Hut deep dish pizza, as the bread had that same greasy, semi-​crunchy/​soft texture as Pizza Hut crusts. Yuck! Despite being hungry, one piece was more than enough for me.
Next up was our broccoli raab and portobello appetizer. This was pretty tasty but was also pretty salty too. It was very saucy and we could have used some proper bread (*ahem*) to mop up some of the flavorful sauce.
Our pizza and calzone came out together, and we shared both items. The pizza looked much better than it tasted. In a word, it was BLAND. How can something with goat cheese, eggplant, red onions, and other good stuff be so bland? Though I could see the sauce peeking out from under the cheese, I couldn’t taste it. Unfortunately, this pizza reminded me of something I might have gotten in my college dining hall. The calzone, on the other hand, was bursting with cheese and was decent tasting (c’mon, how could it not be with what must have been a freaking pound of mozzarella and ricotta stuffed into it? Oh yeah, and spinach). However, the tomato sauce that was poured across the top of it was oddly sweet and lacked tartness and freshness. It reminded me of jarred Prego with a bit of sugar dumped into it for good measure.
Overall, the food was pretty sucky. And it wasn’t cheap, either. We won’t be back. Take me to Il Dolce any day!