Grotto Ristorante

Grotto really is as good as it gets to authentic Italian Cuisine. My husband and I order something new from the menu every time we go. Pizza lovers, this is some of the best pizza Atlantic City has to offer. We love the staff at Grotto, the drinks (especially half off wine bottles on Sundays) and the overall atmosphere. This is a wonderful spot to dine at if you’re visiting Golden Nugget Atlantic City.

Had dinner there last Saturday night. The food was good but the service was not. We had to wait 30 minutes for our food and drink. In fact, the waiter forgot to bring my wife’s drink. we had to remind him.
When this place is crowded the service is not great. It appears the wait staff is overwhelmed when they are busy.
My suggestion is don’t go there when it is crowded.

Nothing special. She had Calamari. Large serving but in a fatty breaded sauce. I had clam casino which too be fair was good. Cooked perfect. Nice and fresh. For entrees she had pizza with goats cheese and I had fettuccine with mariana sauce. Decent sized serving but not much flavour. Waiter was way too busy trying to get us to order more food and drink to point of annoying. With a glass of Pino and one beer it came to$ 90 dollars with tip. Just ok in my view.

This place is awesome. I love Italian food and eat plenty of it in different cities. We were very impressed with the service, food quality, style, and everything. The salad was tasty. The pasta was delicious. The cheesecake tasted like it was made an hour before — the best I’ve had. The price was good for everything we got. Also, try the Wildberry Mojito! Amazing!

Terrible experience all around. Food took 1 hour to come out and was prepared incorrectly. Waiter didn’t really seem to care. Never going back.

We were told new menu and chef had been put in place within the last several months. Results were fantastic. Grotto salad and Minestrone soup was excellent for our starters. Spaghetti with Marinara was simple but fresh. Fettuccini with bolegnese was possibly the best I’ve tasted in the area. Great service. Great experience. Will return for a fourth visit !!

I had the Salmon Brioso. Staff was very accommodating to my dietary restrictions and the food was great. Grotto definitely got our night off to a great start (see my Haven Nightclub review for the continued quality of our night).

Solid italian spot in the golden nugget. The food is reasonably priced for the portions, and everything was fresh. The bread was super soft and the chicken parm was very good. The atmosphere is nice, but it’s directly off the casino floor. Golden nugget is offering free parking, which sweetens the deal if you want to try it out. I’d go back.

Everything this place serves is better than the last time. We tried the Carmelized onion, sun dried tomato with chicken. Outstanding.
There is nothing left to say… each time is a pleasure. And, if you’ve never tried the Chicken Francaise, don’t wait.

Grotto was the second stop on my recent happy hour tour of the Golden Nugget. The place sounded fantastic on paper, especially the $ 3 happy hour «Famous Peach Bellini.»
So what the menu didn’t mention was that the Bellini was frozen and pre-​made. I have sensitive teeth so avoid frozen beverages for the most part. Although I wish it was noted on the menu, I decided to suck it up and just wait for my drink to melt. The bartender saw that I wasn’t drinking it and asked if I wanted something else. He suggested the Lemon Thyme Lemonade which consisted of St Germaine, vodka and some sort of lemon. It tasted like an adult version of lemon water ice and was excellent. I was only charged the $ 6 for the cocktail.
My husband went for the Flying Fish draft special which was the steal of the happy hour. It was only $ 4 for a Red Fish, which is a 7% ABV double red ale/​imperial.
For an appetizer, we split the chicken meatballs on a skewer. It consisted of chicken meatballs, fresh mozzarella, pear tomato and fresh basil leaves on a skewer, served over almond pesto drizzle. Again, perfect on paper but not so much in real life. It seemed like they cut up one mid-​size meatball into four pieces. The mozzarella certainly didn’t taste fresh. The pesto was tasty and the tomato was okay, but I felt majorly ripped off for this $ 8 happy hour special menu item.
Grotto isn’t worth a return happy hour visit, although I do appreciate the bartender’s attempt to rectify my drink disappointment. His customer service and ability to make a good cocktail make Grotto a 3 star happy hour instead of a 2 star.

Our server was extremely helpful and nice, hiwever, the food certainly fell short. The sauce was very watery and it tasted bland. My mother’s red snapper dinner was quite good, however. My father had the pasta diavolo and he also did not like his dish.
Again though, the service was excellent.

Basically this is Olive Garden only worse because there’s no free unlimited breadsticks.
We sat in the bar area at a high top and were greeted by the manager (?) who took our drink order. 20+ minutes later, our server came over for the first time. He offered me another glass of wine on the house due to the slow service, which I accepted. Then I waited 15 minutes for that free glass of wine. They were big pours, though, so that was cool.
We split a Caesar salad which was fine, an order of calamari (lightly breaded and included some fried artichoke hearts, but very salty), and a roasted herb chicken pizza (the pizza part was good, the chicken was gross and overcooked tasting).
We couldn’t tell if our waiter was new, bad, or just stressed, and while the restaurant and bar area was busy (I’m assuming due to restaurant week) it didn’t appear as though our server had more than four high tops.

Undoubtedly the worst Italian food I’ve ever eaten. Dining here reminded me of airplane food. Grotto gets a star for their service but that’s pretty much it. The quality and taste of the food were terrible. Starting with the appetizers, we had the traditional wedding soup, fried calamari, clams casino, and the mozzarella. For entrees, we had the seafood linguini, veal Alfredo fettuccine, and rigatoni w/​meat sauce. The food was either over breaded, soggy or just not fresh. Sauces tasted like it came straight out of a can. As for the desserts, we had the cheesecake, tiramisu, key-​lime pie, and the brownie. The only decent dessert was the tiramisu, which wasn’t even all that. This restaurant should be the last on your list. Casino prices for frozen quality food. Luckily the meal was comped for us. Stay away!

BIG Portions of everything. The service here is really great, friendly and accommodating. The food is just mediocre.
The calamari just tasted like bread crumbs, never ordering this again. The soup was surprisingly good, I’ve never had anything like this tradition wedding soup but I really enjoyed it. There’s bit of pasta and four meatballs in there which filled me up ¹⁄₃ already. If you’re not hungry and want something light, give this a try. The fresh mozzarella dish is cooked, don’t think caprese salad because it’s literally just melted cheese with tomato sauce, nothing special so save your money on that one. The casino clams were typical diner casino clams taste, nothing special. Our server recommended the Veal kickerillo and it was pretty decent. The veal was sliced thin in three patties crusted with parm and topped with a white lemon cream and mushrooms. The portion of the veal was more than average with a side of fettucine alfredo. The seafood pasta was not to my liking mainly because I’m not a big fan of tomato sauce but my friends seems to be okay with it.
I was excited for their desserts because you see all the cakes in front of you and it’s just hard to resist. The server wheels the whole tower of desserts over to you and you just sit there tempted to ordered every one. There were some ups and downs. I didn’t like any of the desserts but my friends were okay with the cheesecake. I expected the key lime pie to be good but it was way too sour. The chocolate cake sounded like it was going to be the best choice but there was not enough «cake» taste, it tasted like flavorless sponge (not that I’ve ever ate sponge before though).
The Golden Nugget website describes this place as authentic italian classics. ehhh. I shouldn’t be expecting too much from a restaurant inside a casino.

Having eaten here recently I can say WOW! AC is a gambling location and it seems the restaurants in many hotels are after thoughts. The Grotto is certainly not one though, it is a lovely place to eat with nice ambience and great food.
My Italian panini was delicious and my fiancé ordered a personal pizza that was wholly made on site and excellent.
We had a snafu with my order and the waiter was really very apologetic and offered to comp us desert,
We will be back, finally a great place to eat in a casino.

The few steps up to a raised level separate the restaurant from the rest of the casino floor, which was nice. The pasta dish that my friend and I both ordered was fantastic. We ate every bite! The desserts looked amazing but I was too full to have one! The peach Bellini was also tasty. A very good casino restaurant!

Tiny portions of mediocre food, greatly overpriced, and slooooowwww service at bar during Happy Hour.
I find a seat at the bar, and next to me sits a guy waiting for his food. He has an empty glass in front of him and is ordering a second drink. That gave me the impression he had been waiting for a while already.
Bar tender (young woman around 20) is asking me what I want to drink, and I am curious about their beer selection. She is listing a few uninteresting brews, and is being called away in the middle of it. Never came back to me, never finished that drink order!
Meanwhile the guy next to me is getting a pizza, and his order is wrong. He wanted it so-​and-​so, and this was different. The guy was sober and well mannered, not a crazy drunk, so I assume they screwed his order up.
Eventually the young woman came back and took my food order. I took the Arancini for $ 8 and the «Long Hots» with vegetable fillings for another $ 8. I had no idea what that would be, but she said it was a hot pepper filled with vegetables.
I love Arancini, the best I had in Scarsdale, NY (Zaza’s), they were fist-​sized and came in a set of 3 for $ 10, sitting in a bed of blue cheese sauce. I was curious what I would get for $ 8 here in the Golden Nugget.
It took very, very long! In the meantime, eventually the guest next to me had his (new) pizza made, the cook put it on some counter behind the bar tender, and there it was left. Forever! I could see it, and he saw it, too. There was his pizza, and it was getting cold, while the bar tender could not care less about the food standing there. She was making drinks for other guests who had come later.
The man next to me eventually called a bus boy over (from the restaurant around us) and asked him to bring him the pizza from behind the bar, because the bar tender could not be bothered with it. The bus boy was very confused about this, didn’t understand at first, but then did it. Bar tender saw that and had no reaction whatsoever. Did she remember that this was an order she completely had first screwed up and then ignored? We will never know!
After about half an hour my 2 plates came. I was shocked when I saw the tiny morsels. Remember, 3 fist-​sized Arancini for $ 10 in New York, which is not cheap at all! Now I was looking at 3 tiny balls on tomato sauce. They call it «Marinara», but I am sure it came out of a bucket, nobody had cooked that in this place!
What size they were? Make a circle with your thumb and your trigger or middle finger, look at that circle — that is the size! Yes, three of them for $ 8!
I thought «Happy Hour» means regular food and drink for lower prices? This was no meal in any way, I wouldn’t even call that an appetizer, because it was simply not enough. 3 bites, and it was gone, and so were my $ 8.
The Long Hots were very hot (spicy, not in temperature). There was no filling, they were long and completely flat, and here and there were some pieces of zucchini or onions or red peppers on top of it. But this was by no means «filled with vegetables» in any way!
I had tears running down my face, but I was very hungry and was determined I would finish it. But it wasn’t enjoyable.
Oh, sometime during my meal the bar tender came back to me and asked «Do you want a drink, Honey?» Yeah, she called me Honey. She could have been my daughter. This was so inappropriate! Of course I didn’t order a drink, I wanted to finish up and get out!
Did she even notice that she had never finished my drink order in the beginning? She had been called away and never came back to me, and I think she didn’t remember that.
Unfortunately I have no pictures to show of these 2 plates, because I had left my tablet up in the room. I finished the food completely, and when she took the empty plates away, she asked her random «Everything great?» question (or something like that), and I said bluntly, «No, this was a mistake». She looked astonished at that point, I guess nobody had said that to her before. But I am sure I wasn’t the first guest getting disappointed there!
When I left that place $ 18 poorer, I deeply regretted that I hadn’t gone to the buffet after all. It isn’t great either, but I wouldn’t have spent much more, and more importantly: I would not have left hungry after spending $ 18 there!
I wished I could give zero points for this non-​performance, but Unilocal will not let me do that. I have to give at least one point, but they really don’t deserve it. Needless to say, I will never go back there.

We stopped in for lunch on a recent visit to the Golden Nugget. The experience was lackluster, during an understaffed afternoon service.
It’s hard for me to expect a lot of selections at Italian restaurants being gluten free. Unfortunately, the others in my party insisted on the Grotto for lunch, so we stopped here. To meet my expectations, they lack a gluten free menu and only had 2 things I could find the Antipasto and the Rotisserie Chicken.
I had both these items. The antipasto is relatively generous to share with a bowl of olives and vegetables and a nice selection of meat and cheese. The chicken was nothing excellent, it was cooked right, but lacked additional flavor. It was also served with potatoes and spinach in very small side servings.
It appeared they had one waiter on staff and he was the «everything man» doing all sorts of odd jobs in addition to waiting tables. This made the service experience very poor despite the efforts of our waiter.
The Grotto is an OK casual venue. Although I can’t have it, their wood fired pizza looks delicious. I’d recommend avoiding the venue for lunch and not to have high expectations of the food.

Definitely a come back place great customer service along with this
chicken Alfredo dish #mustorder guys.

I went to Grotto Ristorante on Saturday night for dinner. The restaurant was busy but there wasn’t a wait. Grotto Ristorante is located in the Golden Nugget Hotel casino area. Don’t let the location fool you. I was surprised because Grotto Ristorante is a nice place to enjoy dinner. The atmosphere can become loud. Your waiter brings warm bread and seasoned olive oil to the table. Grotto bread was fresh. I like how the seasoned olive oil complimented Grotto bread. I ordered a Caesar salad for my appetizer. My Caesar salad was fresh with the right amount of dressing. I went with the parmesan shrimp as my entrée (parmesan cheese breaded shrimp with thin noodles and marinara sauce).I enjoyed my meal. The shrimp was breaded well with cheese and sauce. My noodles were cooked just right. I liked the flavor of the marinara sauce. The portion size of my entrée was small for the price. A bigger portion size would have given Grotto Ristorante a solid 4 star rating. My martini was prepared very well and flavorful. I was pleased with the service. My waiter was attentive. Grotto Ristorante manager came to the table to make sure we were doing ok. The hostess was welcoming. If you’re in the mood for Italian while at Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino, Grotto Ristorante is a good choice. I give Grotto Ristorante a 3.5 rating rounded up to a 4 because of the service.