Zucchi’s

Best atmosphere best blackened chicken tortellini and tomato bisque soup. I love this place.

This is one of the few places I go when I go out to eat in Odessa. they alrarwly disappoint! Ask for Camille as a server. She’s the absolute best!
I have had everything and I love the steaks and the carbonara. ;)

Such great people here in this town that our vehicle broke down in. I recommend the food here that is to die for. A must stop to see Larry who is the best friend you could ever meet. hats off to Texas

I came here on a Thursday. I was going to meet with 2 customers over dinner.
I did not make reservations because it was a Thursday. When I got there the hostess said they had no room and would not accommodate us.
I told her I had important clients and they really wanted to eat there. She replied we have no seating. I even joked… We can sit in the kitchen if needed! Just as I was about to leave I asked if they had room in the bar for us!,
She walked back to a practically empty bar and came back and said yes… They could accommodate us in the bar!!!,
WHY WAS THIS NOT SUGGESTED AT FIRST?
We got seated and the bar staff was friendly and took good care of us.
We ordered appetizers and they were wonderful. The bread they brought out was very good and gave us something to munch on before dinner was served.
I had the filet and it was excellent. Not the best I have had, but very good.
The other folks in my party were impressed with their food as well.
The main reason for not giving a higher rating was the incompetence of the hostess and her ability to «think outside of the box».
Hopefully a little coaching to the hostess to check to see if there is room in the bar will help!

Oh how the mighty have fallen. While this place was a once upon a time jewel of odessa cuisine, times have changed and this is merely a shadow of its former self. The place is mostly empty and its clearly obvious why, first off employees all sitting around talking and wasting time. They have definitely given up caring which shows in the service, good luck finding one when you need them. We waited for 10 minutes with a terrible appetizer, unable to even let them know because they never bothered to stop by and ask how it was.
We ordered the escargot, my gf thought they tasted awful so I wanted to send them back but since we didnt see him for a long time it just sat on our table. When they took it off the ticket they made it seem like they were doing us some huge favor despite the escargot being inedible (the time before when we went the escargot was amazing).
We ordered some of the most expensive options on the menu, the seabass and the «aged» ribeye. Theres no way the ribeye was aged, it was tough, tasteless, and charred beyond recognition. I ended up just throwing away the remainder, and if i hadnt complained about the appetizer id have sent my steak back as well. I had previously gotten steaks from here that were amazing, but this tasted like that chopped steak covered with gravy to hide its toughness that most places who dont know how to cook steak serve. It was ABSOLUTELY not dry aged so I feel they committed fraud on that point alone. I have eaten many dry aged steaks and never once did they taste anything like this (texas roadhouse by comparison served a much more palatable steak).
Finally my gf had debilitating food poisoning after eating her fish that kept her in bed the majority of the next day. This is even more troubling because i tried a bite of hers and actually thought it tasted ok, if you cant tell something is bad by a bad taste, well thats just as scary as I can imagine to a diner.
If you remember some pleasant experience of this place in the past for the love of god dont go again because it will shatter that rosey hued vision of pleasant meals. I used to think this was the best restaurant in odessa, but thank god for mi piaci which is clearly the top game in town for italian.
in fact in light of the recent positive reviews, im wondering if they are paid shills or if they somehow miraculously managed to get a decent meal (I even heard the other table next to us sending something back as we were leaving, so it sounded like the problems werent restricted to one table) because I cant even believe anyone would willingly pay the exorbitant fees this place charges for sub par food. If you want an upscale atmosphere to eat at that actually has good food, go eat at Wokcano, a delightful little sushi place where I have yet to have a bad experience.

Have eaten here several times and never disappointed. I must say I love sea bass and I’ve had sea bass at many other restaurants and have yet to find one that cooks it as well as this place. It is top notch. You must give it a try!

Here it is folks! This place is amazing because of the new general manager. Fantastic!!! 10 stars would be a better score. The chicken fry with jalapeño beacon grave with asparagus was fantastic. Service was the best in 250miles.
You must try this out. It wasn’t the greatest in the passed but now it’s freekin awesome!
Great job.

Larry was SO nice when I was there for lunch. Took the time to talk to each table, you just don’t see that customer service anymore!
I’m in love with the house salad dressing! The lunch menu options are amazing, so different, and always have great specials.

I thought this place was not good at all! My food was cold. Everyone that went with me had complaints about their food as well. The escargot was just flat out disgusting.

I honestly cannot tell you how much you are missing if you dine in Odessa and don’t eat here! The chef, owners and waitstaff are each a tribute in their own right. This is not a chain restaurant and they take great pride in what they do-​the décor could be called dated but I think it only leads charm and character to great food and service! It’s a «must eat»!

I am new to the Odessa/​Midland area and for my boyfriends birthday I wanted to take him to a fancy, nice restaurant. Everyone recommended this place so I give it a try. First off the décor is terrible. It’s like stepping into a thrift store. Very dark and not much lighting, old, and dusty. I ordered lasagna because nothing really appealed to me from the menu. When I get my food there was literally one strip of pasta, maybe a spoon full of sauces, and it was all drowned in ricotta cheese. NOTHING MORE! It was so discussing and my boyfriends plate wasn’t any better. For $ 10+ a plate I was expecting more. Plus for dessert they bring a plate of different desserts you an choose from. So to me it’s just frozen dessert from the swans truck they defrost to give it to you. So disappointing because my boyfriend means a lot to me and to bring him here really upset me because it wasn’t as special as I wanted it to be. I do NOT recommend you eating here.

Food was great but service was okay however service was a lil impersonal that was a let down

This place was fantastic! The ambience is great, the waitstaff is friendly, and most importantly, the food was outstanding. I ate here 3 different times on a week long business trip — I had the tortellini with blackened chicken, chicken fried steak and the penne with chicken in the pink sauce. All three were fantastic, but the chicken fried steak was to DIE for. Oh and please do yourself a favor and get a slice of their mandarin orange cake!!! It’s heaven. I am considering moving to Odessa so I can get to Zuchhi’s all the time!

I wish I would have found out about this place long before I moved away instead of the week before! Best Italian Food in the Odessa/​Midland Area. Period. The salads are to die for, and the meals are so amazing. Words can not even describe how great the flavors are!!! The staff was very friendly, we were probably under dressed but we didn’t get that impression from the staff. If we ever go back to visit this will be a definite stop!

What a wonderful meal!
Chicken Friend Steak, Mashed Potatoes, Corn
Soul Food at an Italian Rest. The Jalapeño Gravy was probably the best I have ever had. Just the right amount of kick!
Too bad, I am from Atlanta or I would be back many more times.

The DH and I got take out from Zucchi’s when we stopped in town for the night during a cross-​country trip. Tired of fast food take-​out and chain restaurants we thought we’d give a local restaurant a try. The good reviews were encouraging.
I stopped in to place the order as the menu was not on their website. The staff was friendly and the order was ready very quickly. We got a caesar salad, mozzarella sticks and fettucini alfredo. After arriving back at the hotel, I began opening up the containers and was impressed with the size of the portions until I got to the main entrée — a paltry amount of fettucini alfredo which barely filled half the container. For the price of the entrée, we were very disappointed. A container with warm bread and dipping sauce also accompanied our order.
The food itself was decent — worth of three stars were it not for the seriously small entrée. Being an east coast girl, I’m a bit spoiled on good Italian food but it was OK. The fettucini alfredo was good — with a tasty cream sauce — I only wish there had been more. The mozzarella sticks were just alright, not crisp enough for my taste. The caesar salad was a very good size and the dressing was tasty but not overwhelming.
If I lived here I might give it another shot, but unfortunately I don’t think I’ll have that opportunity.

Warm ambiance and a well-​balanced menu offering mid to mid-​high priced Italian fare including several pastas (gnocchi, carbonara, etc.), steaks, fish, and a variety of specials and daily selections. The starch choices are a nice touch as well, with a tasty risotto, asparagus, side salad, green beans, or potatoes.
I started with a Caesar salad, which offered homemade dressing (a bit overdressed but otherwise very good). I tried the soup du jour, a ham and cheese soup that was actually quite smooth and not overwhelmingly flavorful. I finished it off with a perfectly cooked mid-​rare aged ribeye that had such a smoky flavor that I almost wondered if the taste hadn’t been added. Either way it was well done (no pun intended). I had it with the risotto which was excellent.
For desert, I tried their version of Tiramisu, which was good but lacked the liquor flavor and saturated texture of the classic desert. It was very good but not great. The desert selection lacked anything light, which would have been nice after such a heavy meal.
Jessica, my waitress, was superb. I’ll definitely be back.

«Sportscenter» on mute is the best type of «Sportscenter». That’s the only sports that I’ve experienced at Zucchi’s Sports Bar.
I don’t hate, I appreciate.
It’s Odessa so the bar status quo is met (cheap drinks, loud music, friends/​non-​friends from High School, lots of smoke). Bring your eyedrops because the circulation isn’t the best. It’s very tiny and there are lots of cigarettes. Catch my non-​drift?

Let’s face it… there’s not a ton of really good places to eat in Odessa that are locally run joints. That being said, this is a fairly decent Italian place in Odessa.
This is certainly a place that locals are at on a regular basis. It’s an Italian restaurant that has a sports bar type area to it. It’s pretty much your typical no-​frills Italian joint.
The food is fairly impressive, though. I’ve had the tortellini with the blackened chicken. It was very good.
They also bring sliced french bread (think a baguette) before your meal with a very unique dipping sauce. It consisted of cheese, garlic, olive oil, and something a little spicier, though I couldn’t tell what. It was very good.
One more thing – It’s casual, but I wouldn’t show up in cut-​offs. It’s a cloth-​napkin kind of establishment.

To everybody from here who says this is a bad restaurant, you don’t know Italian restaurants. You think Johnny Carino’s is Italian and that’s disgusting to me. I’m from the Bronx, NY and this is the best Italian I’ve had since being in Little Italy. I thought I’d be stuck in this desert hell with no good eateries until I stumbled upon this place and I was very pleasantly surprised. If you like MSG-​laden oversalted gimmicky food with an abundance of sauce and themed outfits for the plastic waiters to wear, you came to the wrong place.
To everybody categorizing this as Japanese, you also don’t know Japanese food aside from the sushi (not zucchi, but sushi) you get at HEB, which is also terrible. And to everybody who went in the right door and was met with mexicans in pink polos, that’s the bar. Those looking for decent food don’t go through that door. Those looking to pick up on women who walk the Peppertree Apartments at night do. Be forewarned.
Now, as for the food and atmosphere at Zucchi’s, it’s impeccable. The music is right (they have a keyboardist playing on the raised platform), the fishtank is a good distraction/​setpiece, and the seating while cramped is done in a real restaurant layout, not like what you see at Chili’s. The food is amazing. The first time I went there, I played it safe and got a NY strip with shrimp. Both were seasoned and cooked exactly as I asked. My mother had the spaghetti bolognese and asparagus, which was also very delightful. I asked if they made Fra Diavolo and the chef came out to address that they could by order, which brought a smile to my face because I would’ve been satisfied with him just knowing what it was.
I also asked about the bird of the day, which was quail at the time. If you call in for one early, a whole bird is saved for you when you come in. First come first served on things like fish and bird because it’s not like you can just go to the central market here and pick up select ingredients — they get their food shipped in, which also means no godawful Odessa water. The second time I went, I got a chicken alfredo with steak and potato soup. Once again, the soup was hearty and delicious and the main course was great.
I spoke with the owner about the sauces and he told me they make everything there at the restaurant from his family’s recipes. Really nice people work there, they have an excellent wine list, and you can see the cooks working on your order. I never had to wait too long each time I’ve been there and always left satisfied with my meal. People recommend other restaurants to me when I talk about Italian food and I take them up on these places, but they’re never perfect enough for a man with high standards for good food. In a place like Odessa, TX, real truly good food is hard to find and Zucchi’s is a fine establishment.