Far Niente

I was going to rant about how awful the chicken parmesan dish was, that I had send it back immediately. This was a few months ago…
The worst chicken parmesan — dry, overcooked, tasted like old frozen chicken… then I just found out from Unilocalers they are already OUT OF BUSINESS!
The pasta tastes like the cheap made pastas, very salty, not fresh, gross sauces, somewhat disgusting.
I only came here (for the first and only time) for the Paint Nite event venue, several months back. Truly should be 1 STAR for poor food quality. The 2 star rating was because I really enjoyed Paint Nite!
Awful imitation Italian food… No wonder why they are already CLOSED!!! :-)

This certainly was one of the best Northern Italian restaurants around. So sad to see it go and everyone I have told feels the same. Should the owners ever reopen elsewhere let us know!
Why did it close?

So sad to write this, but Far Niente has closed. If anybody affiliated with the restaurant is reading: surely, with that kind of talent, you can find a small, affordable place to rent (how about in the Eagle Rock area?) and start again. Please bring your food back to Glendale sometime in the future. In the meantime, Far Niente patrons, try George’s Cucina Italiana over in Kenneth Village. I can’t say it’s the same, but it has a great atmosphere and a lot of excellent options.
Here’s my old review:
This is easily the best pasta place in Glendale. They can accommodate a lot of custom pasta orders: even though neither is on the menu, I have ordered an angel hair broccoli chicken alfredo and pasta carbonara. Nice atmosphere, decent prices, and a wide variety of options. They have seasonal fare as well – I was able to order pumpkin ravioli during a visit in the fall. My wife and I come to Far Niente every time we celebrate special occasions.

Closed its doors FOREVER since April 2015 :(was a amazing place! Thank you for all the great years of service.

Came for a friend’s birthday celebration. The place is nice but the service is bad. We were trying to pay each of our order and the person keep saying WHAT to us… ohh he needs to be trained.

Went to Far Niente Ristorante for dinner before the show at the Alex Theatre, we arrived @ 6:30 and told that server that we needed to get to the show for an 8:00 curtain. We got our food @ 7:40. One of our party ordered a steak rare and it was well done. No time to eat or redo the steak. We were not the only party to not get their food in time to eat it. We we spoke to the manager we were told they have been sold and we don’t know if we are going to have a job so we don’t care.
This used to be our go to place before going to The Alex. Not any more.

Honestly I’ve been trying to eat a lot healthier recently so Italian food has become a less regular part of my diet unfortunately. I think we all know that Italian food comes pretty much as close to comfort food as a particular cuisine can, thanks to the rich creamy sauces and carbs… Who doesn’t like carbs?
Anyway I decided to make an exception tonight and ended up at Far Niente in Glendale. It’s a smaller/​medium sized Italian restaurant just off of Brand near the Americana mall. I think the atmosphere is classy, clean and a great place to grab a glass of wine or a nice meal after work.
Everything here was good.
Calamari was excellent! Perfectly cooked, meat was stunningly tender and the flavor was amazing, with a great crispy battered covering that stayed crispy until long after my entrée arrived. With the marinara sauce it was hard to leave any on the plate haha.
Caprese salad also a success. I like how they partnered a thick chunk of fresh mozarrella and avocado. I poured on olive oil and balsamic vinagrette too. That made me very happy.
Pollo escalope for my entrée. I have to admit, I ordered the chicken, because I wanted to go for a healthier, non-​red meat option. So I had tempered my expectations. But this was delicious. The sauce was thick and savory, but with a light feel to it thanks to the lemon and capers. The chicken itself was cooked to perfection, and I ate the entire portion, which was really a double chicken breast, very large. Even the steamed veggies and mashed potatoes on the side were executed perfectly.
My friends got the salmon and the steak, but I noted that none of them failed to finish their food either! Paired with a nice glass of wine, the food here is really excellent. The service was too! I had tiramisu for dessert, also very nice. No complaints here, would definitely come back. If you’re in Glendale and looking for a nice Italian restaurant for friends or family, check out Far Niente!

Loved the food! I had the Pesto Farfalle and it was perfect. Just the right amount of pesto. The escargot was great too. My husband had the Linguini Fruitti di Mare. The sauce was delicious, but the lobster was a bit disappointing. It was too chewy and tough. Overall, great meal!

I had the veal scallopini marsala which tasted good. It came with broccoli and carrots and a small serving of mashed potatoes. Very healthy. I enjoyed the warm complimentary flatbread. The service was ok. I had a dessert which was good.
There weren’t many people in there. I think it was a Wednesday night. It seems to me like it’s half-​way between a bar or meeting place and a restaurant, as if they are unsure what they want to be.

Came for a paint nite. Loved my painting! The staff seemed awesome, bringing wine and dinner to the artists. I didn’t order any food, thought it wasn’t sanitary /​hygienic (toxic /​inedible paint and eating?)
My husband and his friend were at the bar drinking Chimays and apparently enjoying a complimentary slice of pizza! What?! WINNING!
Will return to try the food!

Wednesday all pastas are $ 15 including the salad and Flatbread still!!! Amazing deal. I ordered the seafood linguini and it was delicious, but some of the seafood was a little overcoked. But that much food for $ 15, I am not complaining.

This place is on Brand and there is some (limited, metered) street parking (2hrs before 6pm, 4hrs after). There is also parking in the back. The place is split into two distinct areas. A bar/​pub section and two eating areas. It does have a bit of an unusual layout. I think the place needs a little help with the décor, it seems a little cluttered and feels aged.
That aside I came in for an early dinner (6pm) and on a week day, so the experience might be different at busier times. The waiter was nice and took our order and answered our questions. The food is on a pricey side for what you get and things felt a little boring. The food was decent but wasn’t awesome but not terrible either however for Italian food and $ 20 a plate for dinner for most items, it feels like it should be better. The service was also not what it should have been. I noticed staff were arriving for dinner service around the same time and they largely were hanging out in the back and chatting, catching up, etc instead of out taking care of their customers. The only other thing that could have used some more effort is that drinks weren’t being refilled.
I think that sums up my experience, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great, service could have been better, food was okay but not for $ 20 a plate.

Far Niente is another gem that I passed over numerous times without thinking twice about. A girlfriend suggested this restaurant for girls night, so I was finally able to try this place.
FYI: There are about three different entrances to this restaurant. Do not enter the door closest to Wilson/​Brand as it it will take you to the bar area of the restaurant. It is the same restaurant and it is connected to the main dining area, but it’ll be easier to enter through the «middle» door a few steps down. I wish someone would have told me this information as I was confused as hell when I stumbled into the restaurant during one of their paint nights.
The restaurant has a clean & spacious interior. We made a reservation for a group of 6, but reservations aren’t needed at all. During our time here, we saw about four different parties walk in.
Their bread is AMAZING. It’s incredibly thin, but packed with flavor! Try to eat it when it’s warm– when it cools down, it becomes extra crunchy which can scratch up the roof of your mouth if it’s as sensitive as mine.
The girls & I did family style and ordered a bunch.
–Calamaretti Fritti: Just your ordinary calamari. Love their marinara sauce! It also goes well with their complimentary bread ;)
–Insalata Dell’ Orto: My least favorite dish. It looked like a «naked» chicken pot pie and tasted really bitter too.
–Romana/​Wise Guy: We went half&half on the pizza. Romana and Wise Guy was a nice pairing. Although Wise Guy is delicious, the sausage and caramelized onion can get a bit boring. When you need a nice kick to tickle your taste buds again, Romana is the perfect choice as the tomato, garlic, olive oil, onion, chile pepper, and basil brings immense flavor. Beware, it’s a bit spicy!
–Rigatoni uattro Formaggi Gratinati: Four cheese mac & cheese with mozzarella, parmesan, fontina and mascarpone. As simple and plain the dish may sound, it is packed with flavor. The cheese compliments each other very well and making a delicious & rich dish.
–Risotto Con Fughi: The star of the night! It has mushrooms, parmesan, and truffle oil. As soon as I saw it on the menu, I was sold. I’m in love with truffle everything! I usually can only have a few bites of dishes that are too rich, but this one had me coming back for more! The texture of the risotto is perfection.
Raspberry Crème Brulee: Good crème brûlée, but nothing to rave about. They just did it right.
Almost Soufflé Chocolate Cake: I couldn’t go past the first bite. It’s good, but the chocolate is too much!
Our waitress was very sweet. She was always checking up on us and gave us great recommendations!

We came here for dinner before the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert at the Alex Theater. The sign outside that read you get a free slice of pizza with any alcoholic beverage ordered caught our attention so we had to eat here.
We ordered our drinks and jokingly said that the slice is probably extra small. Lo and behold, the slice is indeed tiny! But then again, it’s free so we’re not complaining. Our waitress didn’t know that someone had already brought us our free slice, so she brought out another two. After finding out, she gave them to us anyway. Two slices for each of our drinks… SCORE!
I ordered the salmon carpaccio wrap and my bf ordered the beef rib wrap. Our wraps were more lettuce than meat and salmon. Since we’ve already had our pizzas, we weren’t that hungry, so took the other half home and had it for lunch the next day. Surprisingly, the wraps were as good the second day. I liked the wrap, despite the fact that they totally skimped on the meat and that I couldn’t taste much of the salmon.
The bf also ordered two glasses of their house red wine. He ordered the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Per the murals on their wall, it seems that they’re known for their cabs, but in my opinion, the Merlot is way better. The cab was on the sweet side, which seemed unusual to me. The Merlot, was smooth and full-​bodied.
When we got the bill, we were afraid that it’d be pretty steep because of all the drinks we ordered. To our surprise, drinks were $ 4, including the house wines because it was Happy Hour. Total bonus! We would definitely come back here during their Happy Hour and order ourselves lots of wine and fill ourselves up on free slices of pizza.

Cool Italian spot. Fish was great. I think I had the sea bass. Manager came to talk to us, Nice touch,

1^st drink on Instagram is 1 cent. Décor is nice. Board games in a semi-​private upstairs loft with big comfy leather sofas. You can reserve this area if you have a group coming in.
Lots of vegetarian options. We ordered a few appetizers for our group. The fried zucchini is very crispy and not soggy even when it’s cooled down. They’re like zucchini sticks. The fried ravioli is delicious and everything is served with the marinara.
The pizza they hand out with the happy hour drink is also mozzarella and basil, so good for vegetarians.
For the meat-​eaters, there’s a sampler party with fried chicken wings, boneless chicken sticks and the calimari is good. Everything is breaded but not overly breaded and not very oily.
We also tried the escargot (snails!) not as garlicy as I was used to, but still not bad.
Parking is close, 90 mins free at the Americana.

Okay this place has officially fell off, how unfortunate. I used to come here with my coworkers and it was great. They would give you a block of parm to work on — thats no more. The service blows and the food is bland.
So where do I begin. We had reservations for my dad’s birthday at 5pm, right when dinner service begins. We were the first ones there and once you walk in you were overwhelmed with the smell of mildew, or was it cleaning agents? I don’t know what it is but its not what you want to smell in a restaurant — gross.
We were also seated to the worst Hack Comedian waiter of all time. his jokes were just about as bad as the food. We never really laughed but he kept on dishing them. Maybe its just me, but when I come to a restaurant its to celebrate or because i don’t feel like cooking. Your job is the waiter is to wait on us and serve us, not stick your way into and interrupt our conversations with your endless stream of corny ass jokes.
Anyway, we started off with some wine, their pizza dough bread and a bunch of different appetizers. All was going alright. Waiter never came by to fill up wine glasses. Just as dinner was getting served we asked for another bottle but he didn’t decide to tell us that they «ran out» of that bottle we asked for until after we were done eating, umm yeah thanks for nothing dude.
Food was BEYOND BLAND! My mother and I both ordered the frutti di mare linguine with spicy tomato sauce. That sauce was bland as all hell and didn’t even have so much as a speck of pepper, let alone any kind of spice. There was one piece of gnarled up lobster in there — i mean Jesus how the hell did they cut it up so poorly? The buss boy also delivered the plates wrong twice, and the waiter never noticed we had to bring it to his knowledge and he just stood there kind of dumbfounded rather than taking action to correct the issue. They also screwed up the coffee service.
This place used to be great, after today the likely hood of me ever coming back are slim to none. The service was a hot mess, the food was so awfully boring. Your better off going down the block to Americana. They have a great Italian restaurant with exemplary service.

I have been wanting to write a Unilocal review on Far Niente for a while. I first frequented this restaurant with my friend for a weeknight dinner. The restaurant appeared posh and elegant. Our server was extremely friendly and checked in often. The bread provided to us was SO GOOD. I couldn’t stop eating that bread even after declaring that I was really full.
I had minestrone soup, which was perfect because it was chilly outside. The bread provided also complemented the soup well. The menu was overall overpriced in my opinion but I figured I’d come back to this place!
Our next visit was for happy hour in the new bar next door to the restaurant. It was an absolutely opposite experience from dining at the restaurant. Upon entering, NO ONE was there to greet me and I was sitting there for a while. I even saw two waiters walk into the bar, chat and left. I was not hidden from view. Finally, I went to fetch some assistance and asked for a menu. When my friend arrived, we placed our order. My friend wanted to order a whiskey cocktail but had reservation about the drink. Our bartender/​waiter assured us he wouldn’t make it too strong. However, he added, «If you don’t like it, you still have to pay for it.» That was really off-​putting, rude and made us feel uncomfortable.
I also noticed a sign that we would get free pizza if we ordered a drink from the happy hour menu or something like that. After placing my order, I asked about that offer. The same guy responded, «Only a SLICE of pizza.» His people skills were just lackluster. I also asked for bread because it was really good last time and he said he would bring it out. He brought us our drinks and my friend was dissatisfied with her whiskey cocktail. I tasted it too and it was actually pretty strong. We felt really uncomfortable letting the bartender know that we were dissatisfied based on his previous statement.
Therefore, my friend was really courteous and cautious when expressing that she wasn’t pleased with her drink. We didn’t want a strong or negative reaction from him. We just wanted to wind down after a long day at work. His response — saying that we still have to pay and no offer to bring out another drink. So my friend went ahead and ordered another drink. We eventually told another man who stopped by our table to see how we were doing. The bartender shortly came to our table thereafter and asked if we were displeased with the drink. He didn’t appear genuine and he probably was asked to check in and replace it due to our earlier report to another gentleman about the drink. He replaced the drink and fortunately, we were not charged for the whiskey cocktail.
I had a well cocktail (pineapple and rum) and thought that it was really good for a well cocktail. I also had deep fried ravioli and thought it was the best deep fried ravioli I have ever had! So creamy and good! The slice of pizza was meh. The bread was never brought to us but I wasn’t going to bother. Regardless, we were almost excited to get out of that place and finally understood why the bar section was so empty, while the restaurant was busy.
I understand their happy hour is supposed to help them promote their new bar, which is trendy, modern and have plenty of potential. However, they are going to have to do something with the attitude of that bartender if they want the bar to fare as well as the restaurant. Nobody wants to come in to unwind after work and deal with this. I wish that it would’ve been a better experience for us because we really liked that restaurant.

What a cute little Italian restaurant in the hood! Had a bit of trouble finding this place, had to call to make sure we were on the right street, stupid GPS… We went in through the bar and lounge door, couldn’t find the dining room, a waitress saw us wandering around, showed us the way to the restaurant main entrance, she was extremely friendly, even let me choose a big booth, semi private and so comfy.
The menu is so good, many choices for Pescetarians and Vegetarians. Nice wine list too, but we brought our own reserved Italian red, I would have ordered some cocktails but we were on a tight schedule for a movie, couldn’t do a slow dinner, the food came out so fast which was great!
Complimentary bread: the bread was so thin and crisp, great with organic olive oil, loved how thin the bread was, it wouldn’t fill me up so fast.
Appetizers:
Daily soup: lobster bisque, so creamy and tasty, hubby liked it a lot.
Jumbo shrimp cocktail: served with lemon, cocktail sauce, mustard and horseradish: the shrimps were so fresh and tender, so good, very delicious!
Entrees:
Steamed mussels with white wine garlic broth: the mussels weren’t big, but very tender, the white wine broth was amazing, so light with enough flavors, it was almost like a tasty soup for me, loved it! The French fries were not bad.
Angel hair with assorted seafood: lots of seafood in there, very tender, full of flavors, the pasta was very delicious, I stole two small bites, hubby couldn’t get enough of it, so yummy!
Had to skip desert cause we were running late, a quick dinner, but the food was great, the service was so nice, all staffs were very attentive and fast, I was impressed! The food portions were huge, the menu prices were decent!
A very classy Italian restaurant, love the relaxing and family friendly atmosphere, good for both casual dinner date or friends and family group dining. The bar and lounge area is great to have some drinks before or after dinner.
Ps. Lots of street parkings nearby, or parking structures.

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT!!!
Great happy hour :) Good for a romantic night out.
They are still making updates on restaurant, I am sure it will be much better once they are complete.
Service is great, all servers are very attentive.
What we ordered at Bar FN:
Fried Calamari
Mini Meatballs
Garlic French Fries — needed a bit more garlic :)
Several well drinks and for every drink came a slice of delicious pizza.