Milano Joe’s Cucina Italiana

We had the dinner special $ 49.95 for two chicken dinners, a $ 25 bottle of wine and a desert, a great deal. Both the service and food were better than average, I will be returning.

Came in for lunch on a Sunday and there was nobody else in the place. Service was ok. Got the chicken sandwich with pesto sun dried tomato spread, it was pretty good. The sandwich’s are done panini style and the kettle chips are homemade.
I will come back and try the pasta. I just hope they will be around for my next visit.

I used to think more highly of this place. The food is okay, not bad, just a bit behind other offerings in town that are better.
The thing that kept me going back time and time again was the La Rosa beer from Biretti. This is really one of the finest examples of it’s style available in the States, and they had it here… in talking with the wait staff, though, it seems that it was too obscure for most patrons, who passed it over…

Milano Joe’s is a great restaurant, a favorite addition to 1^st streets collection of eateries.
Fantastic dishes, pasta, chicken, seafood, and a meat sauce that’s doesn’t taste like it started in a can.
The atmosphere is always comfortable and welcoming, bolstered by cheerful and upbeat staff.

This is not a bad little place and I too, am suprised to see such low reviews for it.
I had seen Milano’s before and was curious to check them out. So, not wanting to wait for a half an hour to get into Ale House down the street, (a very popular place) we decided to check out Milano’s.
I absolutely love how well they decorated the interior of the restaurant with its classic, rustic, Italian charm and though its small in size, it does seem to have a decent amount of seating.
We were greeted and seated by a very nice server and handed the menu. They have a really nice selection of dishes presented in there menu.
I was in a toss between several different dishes but decided upon a Chicken dish wrapped in prosciutto (wish I now can’t recall the name) in a white wine cream and garlic sauce along with a side of steamed veggies. My babe ordered the Chicken Parmesan with pasta. I also ordered a glass of Zinfandel from a local winery named 3 Steve’s, which was outstanding!
While waiting for our food, we were served a hot little loaf of bread in a basket (which I did not try) though, my hun thought it was fantastic!
Meals arrived later looking extremely delicious. My dish was not outstanding though, was still quite delicious and my vegetable’s were steamed just perfectly. I also had a bite of my huns Chicken Parmesan which was also really tasty.
Overall, the atmosphere was delightful, the food was quite good and the service was very attentive as well as friendly. The prices (I thought) were a little pricey for some but decent for the most.
Certainly not one of the best Italian places I have been to, but certainly worth coming back again.

I had high hopes for this place because the Italian food in Livermore is really bad. It’s a quaint, kitschy little place with Dean Martin playing in the background. A bit cliché but if the food is good …
To start, the sauce was not of this world. Really, not sure what it was. My best guess is from a can. Not good. I played it safe and had the eggplant. It reminded me of an eggplant parm I had once on a flight from SFO to Newark.
My wife asked for clams in white wine sauce and got clams in a watered down white cream sauce. It was fair at best.
The wine was garbage (but hey, Italian wine is always a crap shoot).
To top it off, it was expensive and they over charged us on the bill (which they fixed). I usually will give a restaurant a second chance, but I think I’ll pass this time.

I am actually surprised to find such a low rating for this restaurant. Yes, I ended up going to this restaurant as the Ale house down the street had an hour and fifteen minute wait which was not a wait I was willing to sit around for.
Milano Joe’s was somewhat small considering the restaurant style, but immediately the waitress was incredibly nice and accommodating when we sat down. They have a bottle of Chianti waiting on the table for $ 24 dollars which we were going to purchase, but upon requesting that the waitress was more than happy to let us know of their wine specials that they had $ 50 wines going for $ 24 which is the same price, etc. So that was nice of her.
The other couple we went with wanted Lasagna which was not on the menu, but the waitress was nice enough to make it happen! My spouse and our other friend got the chicken Parmesan and you can order that with vegetables, fries, a side of noodles. Each looked great and the vegetables came out with a hearty serving. I got the tilapia in a butter sauce with capers and it was a large serving. I believe two filets and it was incredibly delicious.
Anyhow, I would return to this location and like to try more of an Italian dish.

Ugh
What a horrible place.
First, there’s the amount of time you have to wait. For everything. Water. Bread. Order. Food (and why bring out one order at a time? Weird.) And the food– just bad. This isn’t really Italian. It’s sort of a bland American version of Italian– and it’s WAY over priced. Way. Way. They had some interesting wines (even if you do have to wait for an ice age to get your wine) but that’s not a good enough reason to eat here. The ambience sucks, the food sucks and the service sucks. Spend your money somewhere else. I wish I had.

Listen to the other reviewers… The food is not good! We should have suspected as much when the Ale House was overflowing (an hour wait) and this place was empty.
My Pasta Primavera was greasy, and the veggies were raw. Unfortunately, I’d have to say that this is the worst Pasta Primavera I’ve ever had. My hubby’s chicken dish was fair; the sauce definitely tasted canned and the chicken was a bit tough.
I’m giving it two stars simply because it is a cute place, the staff was friendly, and the bread and soda were plentiful.

Our adult children came from out of town to celebrate a quick birthday dinner for my wife. We were planning on eating at the Alehouse but the wait was too long so we looked for a close alternative.
We wandered down to Milano Joe’s and took a quick look at the menu. The hostess was friendly so we decided to give it a shot.
After a few minutes the waitress came out and took drink orders and told us the special tonight was lasagna (didn’t disclose the price — pet peeve of mine).
My wife and I had already decided on the Sunday special of beef stew. The waitress came back to take orders (hard to understand because she was stumbling over her tongue piercing) and I asked her what was in the beef stew. She said they weren’t serving that any more.
I decided on the Caesar salad with chicken and my wife chose the eggplant parmesan. The kids had various other «specialty» dishes.
The waitress brought out the plates — first a couple of the entrees, a few minutes later a couple more entrees, a few minutes more go by a couple of the sides and so on. Still no Caesar. I tell everybody to go ahead and start eating while I wait for my salad.
After another 5 minutes or so my salad finally shows up with an apology that there was a mixup in the kitchen. What part of Caesar with chicken is so difficult to understand?
Anyway, the salad was fair but not something you would expect at a «Cucina Italiana». My wife said the eggplant tasted like something out of the frozen food aisle in the grocery store (for 15 bucks?!?). 20 & 21-​year olds will eat almost anything but their pasta and vegetables were all undercooked.
The only good part was we were offered 10% off for filling out a survey on quality and service which I happily accepted.
Needless to say, we won’t be back…