Scotti's Italian Restaurant

Having never been there, made a reservation at 8 for myself, husband and 12 yr old son - looking for a nostalgia place for my son to experience. I would have loved to been able to share Scotti's with him. We arrived prior to our reservation for a glass of wine,  however unknown to us, there is no bar area. We asked for a glass anyway and they refused and asked us to leave, to not come back. Stunned, we left and found a wonderful family owned Italian restaraunt around the corner called Campanello's. Service was amazing and food was impeccable!

After months of walking past Scotti's we finally made it! And I am so glad we did! What a great experience!

Lots of American colleagues have warned me several times that "Italian food in the US is not really like Italian food in Italy". I always reassure them by saying that Italian food in Belgium is not like Italian food in Italy either. Each country just adapts Italian dishes and I'm fine with that (especially because in general it includes adding a lot more sauce and meat to the standard Italian dish!).

However, the Italian places I've tried in Cincinnati haven't really taken my breath away. Often, it just tastes bland.

So hurray for a "real Italian"! I've only been once, but I can highly recommend the spaghetti carbonara! It came with spicy sausage on top, which the dish didn't need at all in my opinion, so I just left them to the side and it was still plenty enough! My husband really liked the green lasagna.

5 stars for the food, as well as the service - quick, but not too quick (you can actually enjoy the surroundings and not feel as if you need to leave in 20 minutes) and very friendly.

So why was I tempted to give only 4 stars?
Because it's pricy - although I loved the food, the main reason we kept walking by was that we thought the dinner prices were outrageous. For lunch though, it's really reasonable: only 20 dollars for both our dishes together! This is definitely our new favorite Italian lunch spot (next to Fusian for sushi, and Akash for Indian). So, just come here for lunch! -- and yay, that did allow me to turn this into a 5 star review :)

While I liked the interior a lot (the candles! the walls! the old winebags hanging from the ceiling!), I was a bit intimidated to walk in for the first time. It's really a jump into the unknown... And I kind of expected some sort of mafia-looking people to walk in any moment (which does add to the real Italian feeling I guess :)) - I'm not suggesting to change ANYTHING as all of this is what makes Scotti's so unique.

I guess the only way to make sure people aren't intimidated is to just keep talking and writing about Scotti's! So please do!

Seriously?!  Olive Garden is better than this place.  It's so dark and dungeon like to start with.  I know everyone has raved about how great the atmosphere is, NO.  I have no clue how this place has stayed open sooo long.  My in laws heard it was a great place to go and the restaurant was celebrating 100 years, I thought why not.  I think the wine and the salad was the only decent thing that I ate.  It's not homemade, nor does it remind me of Italy in any way, and yes I've been 3 times.  Not to mention that the "Gentleman", lets call him, that ran the place was way annoying.  He kept rambling on to another table, they hardly were able to eat, and he kept saying "fa get about it", like he was playing an Italian in a movie.  Needless to say, I did not want to hurt my in laws feelings, so we claimed to be full, but ended up going somewhere else to eat after we left:(  Do not recommend.