Sofia Restaurant

Had a lovely dinner there last night with my 4 year old daughter and my husband. Franco was out waiter and he was excellent! He kept my daughter entertained with magic tricks and provided us with great service. The atmosphere was cozy and welcoming and the food was great. We both enjoyed our meals and our daughter was perfectly happy with her spaghetti and meatballs. Great experience and will be back soon!

This place was a great find after we were shut out from our first choice since the other guys were closed on Monday. Fantastic specials and a salad of arugula and fennel and honeydew. Very very nice. Only down was I ordered a pinot noir. My mistake I suppose in an Italian place. It wasn’t very good but my buddy said his melt was good so go figure. Multiple thumbs up.

My girlfriend and I were visiting New York and our last night came here to eat with family. It was amazing! Our waitress was very attentive, made sure our waters were filled at all times and had bread. The food was absolutely delicious, i ordered this salad which I wish I could Remember the name of. I got the salmon and vegetables. It was one of the best italian restaurants I’ve ever eaten at! Will definitely return next time I’m in New York, especially to eat that salad again. Yum.

Service is good but food my food was bad. My husband and I odrered shrimp scampi and grilled chicken with penne alla vodka. Shrimp was hard and the scampi sauce was awful. The chicken was on top of the alla vodka pasta and it was dry; it did not look good so of course it wasn’t good. I went here because someone recommended this place. A waste of $ 44 bucks.

I brought my wife and met a few of her friends there last night for her birthday. Which was a surprise for her. The staff did a good job in keeping it a surprise.
It was a good experience. The service was good. He was a friendly guy. I could tell he was a little bit of a ball buster, but he held back with us. Which is a good thing. He was attentive without being overbearing. The meals were also good, we got a great table. The staff was very helpful all the way around. We all had a couple of drinks. Which came out promptly.
I got one of the specials. I was going to go with the Linguine Vongole, but changed my mind and when with Linguine in lobster sauce special. It was ok, I regret not getting the Vongole. My wife also got a chicken special, which was also ok. We were not raving about our dinners, a little bland. But the others at the table all really liked their dinners. The Penne with Vodka sauce was said to be very tasty. He even wiped the bowl clean with bread at the end. The veal with prosciutto was very good. I had a bite of that. It was delicious. And the other woman at our table really enjoyed her steak. It came with a large side of gravy, which looked pretty good. We had some bruschetta for an appetizer, it was very good. One glass of wine had quite a bit of sediment in it, but my wife said it tasted fine, so she didn’t want to make a fuss.
The staff was great, food a little bland (my wife’s and mine was anyway), but good. The place has a very comfortable and warm atmosphere. Lots of the local Italian Bay Ridge clientele at the bar. Another big table next to us of people speaking Italian. (which was also a birthday party) It was an enjoyable time. A few of the staff came out with a piece of chocolate mousse with a candle and sang my wife happy birthday. Very nice. Great chocolate mousse too. We had an excellent time with my wife’s friends. My wife said it was the best birthday she has had in years.

This is a very classically Bay Ridge American Italian restaurant. Heavy on the kitsch, heavy on the heavily-​accented Bay Ridge lifers, and very, very overpriced. This is probably the most offensive thing you can say about an Italian restaurant, but: it’s basically a fancy Olive Garden with a little local flavor. The wine is served in large helpings, which is great, but the food, while certainly tasty, is nothing special. If it were 10% less expensive, I’d say yes, go for it, have a great night here. Unfortunately, it’s really only so-​so, and Vicolo down the street is much better for the same price. I suggest you try this place once to see if your experience differs, but don’t set your expectations too high.

Went there last night and the place was busy for a Monday. We order the shrimp appetizer which was seasoned perfectly garlic, lemon and Hooray one place that uses butter and not only white wine. We also ordered the warm goat cheese salad which should’ve had more lettuce for the amount of cheese that was given, though still yummy not knocking it. For main we shared the filet with potato and vegetables which was cooked perfect and got the porcini risotto which, I wish was more creamy and will not be having next time. We ended with Italian cheesecake which I loved also had the tiramisu a little more rum and would be great.

usually sit and the bar when I go… food is delicious and consistent… Andy is great. friendly waitstaff always with recommendations.

This place is a poor excuse for an Italian resteraunt. Had to send back the tuna tartar because it was obviously spoiled, Sent back 2 bottles of wine that were spoiled before getting a decent bottle. The salad was brown and main courses were overdone and not impressive at all. I do not recommend this place at all.

When dining out, I never expect perfection. I do expect to receive value in proportion to the cost of the meal and an atmosphere that favors professional service. Sophia offers this up nicely, though I may skip the shrimp appetizer next time (delicious but overpriced at nearly $ 4.00 per shrimp).
We came for our daughter’s birthday. Even though the menu is designed to reflect a variety of Italian cuisines beyond pasta and tomato sauces (i.e., they aren’t on the menu), the chef at Sophia made our daughter a great spaghetti with meatballs on request and brought it out to her.
We would return.

So because of Unilocal,I’ve decided to try Sophia for dinner. I made reservations a week in advance. When I arrived, the hostess wasn’t there for whatever reason. (She’s very polite as we met her later in the evening). But the waiter couldn’t find my reservation but another was able to. However, while they were searching for my reservation, they looked around the main dining area by the front door and couldn’t figure out where to seat us. There were 2 empty tables and also empty tables outside. Not sure why they couldn’t figure out where to seat us. I don’t like playing the «race card» but maybe that was it.
So they found our reservation and by that time, the hostess was back and showed us to our table.
The food was ehhh. The portions were decent. But I’ve had better food in the city and at another Italian restaurant in Bay Ridge. (Prefer not to say which one in case readers think I work for them by vouching for them).
But the whole reservation fiasco kind of killed the experience for us. The waiter never told us the evening’s specials yet the table next to us had it. We had to listen in to find out what it was AFTER we ordered.
The service was very quick meaning that they kept throwing plates of food at us without many minutes of digestion in between to enjoy the food and cleanse our palates. The restaurant could have been more romantic but it was hard to hear the background music as it was packed with people. I felt like I was eating in a diner. Sad that’s how we spent our anniversary dinner. Wouldn’t go back but at least I got to try it – unfortunately.

Before I write anything else, let me preface that this is the first review I have ever submitted on Unilocal.I use this site often to check out new restaurants, but never had the need to review one – UNTIL NOW. I am not sure what restaurant some of these other reviewers are describing, but it is not even remotely close to the experience we had.
My family and I just visited this restaurant on June 17^th, 2013 for my twin nieces 14^th birthday. We were eight people altogether, though my nieces had no food except to share a tartufo. I will itemize all the things that went wrong:
1) There were only TWO other occupied tables in the restaurant besides ours. There were two waiters and a busboy working that night. We had to literally go search for these «workers» to: A) Place our orders, B) clear the table after each course, C) get refills on water, bread, etc. They would simply not come to the table and when they did come to take orders, they took for half the table and disappeared. After THREE HOURS of mostly waiting, I finally had to look for the waiter and gave him my credit card before we even got the check because we wanted to get out of there. He proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes outside the restaurant and I had to look for him again to get the bill and my credit card back.
2) All of this would have been acceptable if the food was good. Forget about it! Several of us ordered the Cold Antipasto, which was the worst I have ever seen. There were fried beans in it, (??), and one skimpy piece of mozzarella and mortadela. It was pretty bad. My mom has the Eggplant Parmigiana everywhere we go and she said this was by far the worst she had because it was tasteless. My sister-​in-​law ordered the $ 32 lamb chops and said they were fatty and tasteless. I ordered the seafood combination, thinking I was getting shrimp, clams, mussels and calamari, (and I did get one of each), but 70% of what I received was a fish I am not even able to identify, and did not like at all. All in all, it was the worst food we ever had in Brooklyn.
3) On top of the VERY bad service and the VERY disappointing food, the worst part of it were the unbelievably rediculous prices! First of all, we checked out the menu on the website before we went there but when we received the menus at the restaurant, the prices for almost every single item were $ 7 more. That should have given it away right there! When it came down to the desserts they were not on the menu. I thought it was very strange that they would have a big selection of desserts and yet not have that or the coffee on the menu so we could see the prices. We probably should have asked what the prices were, but who knew they would all be double digits?
We also did not think to ask about the cost of a glass of wine or a beer because this is pretty much the same everywhere. But unless any of you want to spend $ 15 on a glass of wine, I would stay far away from this place! All in all, when we FINALLY got the bill, (which, by the way, did NOT itemize all of the items we ordered, so it was near impossible to figure out what we were charged for each item), the bill came to $ 480, and considering only six people were eating and there were only 2 glasses of wine and 2 bottles of beer, $ 80 a person is outright robbery!
What contributed to this really expensive bill is the fact that they automatically included a 20% gratuity!!! I know we were eight people, but, as I said, only six were ordering. The whole point of a tip is to reward good service and reserve the right to tip less for bad service, which I was prepared to do. But now I know why they never bothered to come over to our table all night – because they already knew they were getting a 20% tip from us – the last ripoff of the night!
I am still fuming about this whole experience. I have never seen such a bad combination of food, service and price in my life, and I hope this review will save others from experiencing the nightmare that we had there!

What a Bad experience.
sat down with our party of 6
drinks at the bar no problem nice bar tender decent drinks nice looking place, comfortable atmosphere.
shame the good stuff stops there.
The salads had brown wilted lettuce
the Tuna tartar was brown and old
the pulpo under seasoned but tender
The wine cellar is kept at too high a temp the bottle were coming out at close to 70 degrees 2006 and 2009 vintages in that cellar are SHOT
rotted corks and foul wines forced us to send 2 bottles back and the two we managed to get were over priced and not great
on to the main course
over cooked red veal in the special and one didn’t even get what he ordered but it didn’t matter as we had had enough at that point
highly over spiced lobster dish over cooked but the pasta was cooked properly and the sauce had potential
over cooked dry chicken
and my pasta was under cooked by a mile and better yet 50 percent of it was stuck together in little clumps tossed with bland bitter broccoli and grey sausage
we didn’t stay for desert
best part of the night was after I paid the bill and tiped the waiter fairly I might add because he tried his best
I tried to speak to the manager and he informed me that everything was perfect as the restaurant does 2 million a year in business. LMAO
and the some sour old bitty chimed in that the food is excellent now ROFLMAO
shame full how many people eat and drink crap and think its great

Sophia’s was absolutely wonderful! It was our first time visiting Little Italy, we got the margherita pizza which was superb. The spices were very fresh and the crust was nice and crispy. Actually this was the BEST pizza that we found in NYC! The hospitality was also excellent. And yes, it was much better than Lombardi’s

Was there about a month ago. I had the house salad, which was not impressive at all, lacking flavor. The eggplant rolitini also, was very bland. I was not impressed at all, and definitely will not be returning

Came here recently with a large party (reservation recommended). I had homemade pasta special which was delicious. Zuppa di pesce was also good but the shrimp were added sparingly. I also had baked clams, caprese and calamari appetizers. The food was good but nothing overly special in my opinion. I don’t live in Brooklyn and wouldn’t go out of my way to try this restaurant. However, if I was in the neighborhood and friends suggested it, I would go back.

Solid. I helped a friend move and we were ready for a decent dinner. We looked like two people who just spent 5 hours unloading a moving truck into a four story walk up so we wanted to find a place that wouldn’t mind. The staff was lovely and the locals were friendly, I felt very welcome. The house wines were decent. We shared carpaccio and prosciutto & melon. Both delicious. My spinach gnocchi was very good. Light and creamy, and the tomato based sauce provided a nice acidic balance.

I hate to admit it, Sophia just the name by itself made me not want to go there but a friend of mine convinced me they have the greatest Italian food ever. Off I went with a hesitation, and closed mind, we were greeted by a well-​manner and polite waiter. He made us feel so welcome and immediately I felt excited to eat there.
I was looking at the prices, yes it is expensive but good thing we went there for dine in brooklyn where you were able to pick appetizer, entrée and dessert for $ 20.11. They give you unlimited fresh baked bread with butter, thanks waiter. We actually just order water but he gave us white sangria «on the us,» in other words it was free. It had to be the best sangria I ever had. Whoo whoo!!! For the appetizers, I got mussels in white sauce, yummy. For entrée, I got salmon in mushroom sauce with baked potatoes and zucchini w carrots. I think this is the exceptional salmon I ever tasted. As for tiramisu, you have got to give it a try.
My day was satisfied by the wonderful food I have eaten and to top it off the notch, I received an outstanding customer service.

Solid Italian in Bay Ridge.
Good service, not over bearing.
Nice seating and a lot of natural light toward the back.
Enjoyed the special, Artichoke. Nice.
Had the Penne Vodka which was in a very nice cream sauce, with seafood diced in, with a good selection of scallops and small shrimp.
For dessert a nice Ricotta bases, lumpy cheesecake and a cap.
Overall, a nice experience.
They have a nice small bar in the entranceway with a TV hanging very close if you want to catch a game.

We ate dinner there tonight with a friend who lives in Bay Ridge and we really liked it. Our friend & I had the minestrone soup & the spinach ravioli, and my husband had the pasta bean soup & the cheese tortellinis with mushrooms. The food was very good, the service was also very good (all of the servers were pleasant & sweet-​natured), and the interior was very cozy & nicely-​decorated for the holiday. Prices were moderate, all things considered.