Toscana

Overpriced mediocre food served by people who need a lesson in customer service. Will never go back. I would rather pay double for much better food served by wait staff that is attentive

Family went for daughter’s birthday. The food was good nothing great but management is the reason I will not return. We all ordered Mare my wife asked for it not spicy I asked for it spicy. The server said spicy and I said that was mine. Then he said the next one is spicy and my wife said hers was not spicy so they said they would make her another. No big deal. But 3 of us ate and the 4^th waited. Then they brought the plate back and asked her to try it. It was extra spicy. Turned out her plate was mine and the manager blamed me for taking her food. Then my wife heard them talking about us, I wish she would have told me but she knew I would have let them have it and she did not want to ruin my daughter’s birthday.

Absolutely outstanding! Excellent food (I had swordfish) service, ambiance; all the very best. And on a wonderful patio, out of sight of cars and parking lots. It felt like my fondest memories of my days in Italy.

The pasta dishes are fantastic. They have a nice seating area outside. Would definitely recommend this restaurant…

This place would be four stars as far as the pasta taste, but because of the cleanliness and attention to detail, I rated it 3 stars.
Noisy, Noisy, Noisy! I would wait to be seated at an outside table before I sat inside again.
The ladies Bathroom was disgusting. I attached pictures that show the lack of attention to detail.
Bread — Is dry and unappealing! (Get the chips instead) My friend said the bread is the Italian kind you find in Italy. The kind that crumbles. They served it with beans. You can request real butter, which only semi helped. I would order the zucchini appetizer. Never a disappointment!
The pasta was incredible! Best so far in Charlotte. The sauce is delicious! They put just the right amount. The pasta itself was a little all dente. I will be back just for the pasta!!! I highly recommend Toscana for this reason alone!!!
The drinks were made nicely! Hendrick, Gin-​a-​tonic and the Pinot Gregio.
Recently my friend ordered the Scallops with couscous. She said if she wasn’t starving, she would have left it on the plate. Not tasteful.
Clams with Angel hair pasta — My friend said it’s get new favorite dish! — She said she might start ordering this from now on. It was that good!
Our pasta order:
Buttera tubular pasta– italian sausage and sweet peas in a tomato cream sauce $ 19.95
*minus sausage & peas + buffalo mozzarella cheese
Positano penne pasta– sauteed shrimp, zucchini and cherry tomatoes in a garlic and white wine sauce with pecorino cheese $ 21.95
*minus shrimp & tomatoes

Noisy, Noisy, Noisy! I would wait to be seated at an outside table before I sat inside again.
This place would be four stars as far as the pasta taste, but because of the cleanliness and attention to detail, I rated it 3 stars.
The ladies Bathroom was disgusting. I attached pictures that show the lack of attention to detail.
Bread — Is dry and unappealing! (Get the chips instead) My friend said the bread is the Italian kind you find in Italy. The kind that crumbles. They served it with beans. You can request real butter, which only semi helped. I would order the zucchini appetizer. Never a disappointment!
The pasta was incredible! Best so far in Charlotte. The sauce is delicious! They put just the right amount. The pasta itself was a little all dente. I will be back just for the pasta!!! I highly recommend Toscana for this reason alone!!!
The drinks were made nicely! Hendrick, Gin-​a-​tonic and the Pinot Gregio.
Recently my friend ordered the Scallops with couscous. She said if she wasn’t starving, she would have left it on the plate. Not tasteful.
Our pasta order:
Buttera tubular pasta– italian sausage and sweet peas in a tomato cream sauce $ 19.95
*minus sausage & peas + buffalo mozzarella cheese
Positano penne pasta– sauteed shrimp, zucchini and cherry tomatoes in a garlic and white wine sauce with pecorino cheese $ 21.95
*minus shrimp & tomatoes

Completely excellent! From the Lobster (real) bisque, to the wonderfully created main dish, to the authentic desserts!!! Note… ‘REAL’ coffee. Much flavor & strength, not D & donuts.
A real treat of a meal to enjoy…
And the hostess (Ava), makes the evening a delight.

Great food and very consistent. Last nights risotto with shrimp & mushrooms was a restaurant week holdover. 3 courses for $ 35. It was awesome. If I ran the circus for a day they’d add broccoli rabe to the list of available sides. Beyond that I would tweak much else. Try it and enjoy!

The best outdoor patio in Charlotte. Most authentic Italian! Staff and food does not get any better.

This place has really good food, drinks, and coffee. We made a reservation and then waited thirty minutes to be seated despite the fact that we saw open seats. In addition, this place was small portions and super expensive. I ordered ravioli, which was amazing, but I was still starving afterwards because the plate only had six on it. The price to portion size is definitely not worth it.
The bartender was extremely friendly; however, I felt the waiter didn’t take my friend and I seriously because we were younger than their other customers. I often felt ignored and had to ask multiple times to have my water refilled.
I don’t think I will seek out this restaurant in the future, but I wouldn’t be upset if someone took me here because the food is good. The price to me just isn’t worth it for how small the portions are.

Our entire dinning experience at Toscana was terrible, from our trip to the bar throughout dinner. The bar was dirty and drinks and appetizers from pervious customers hadn’t been cleaned and even after we sat down the bartender didn’t clear away the remains of others. The waiter which I think was the manager was rude, arrogant and unapologetic. He was «in and out» of our table, had to take several of our orders again, we had to ask for drinks, salads and appetizers repeatedly. The wait staff was running around endlessly, dinner was not relaxing and on top of all this the food was below standards.

I read the reviews about the service not being good but wow! The overall feeling that my wife and I had was «thank you so much for letting us eat here!» I could go on but I have better ways to spend my time. Everybody loved the food including myself but I will not be back.

From the complimentary champagne while we waited for our table, to the amazing meal, everything was fabulous. We did have an experience like a previous guest posted with an extremely loud table of ten or so right next to us. That was difficult to deal with but the ambiance, service, food and wine were top notch. Will return every time we come to Charlotte!

It’s bad when the owner has to come around an apologize to every table in the place for the one 10-​top that has no understanding of «inside voices»!
That being said… The food and the service by Ryan was really good. I would definitely go back, but I might call and ask beforehand if there are larger parties booked.
If so, I would go on another night. This restaurant is beautiful and has great outdoor seating in nice weather, but small inside for a large (noisy — shrieking women — party).

My wife and I wanted to try a new place to celebrate our anniversary. We were highly impressed with the service, food quality and atmosphere.
We spent about $ 100 between the wine, hors d’oeuvres, meal & dessert. It was money well spent.

Food was real good. Service was kinda slow. Atmosphere is okay but loud. Nice patio outside.

Brought my wife here to celebrate her birthday — everything was wonderful and we were both very pleased. The food was excellent and seemed to be «authentic» yet on par with today’s standards. The service was excellent, we wanted to for nothing despite the place being packed. There was a large table next to us where the patrons were… gregarious, (read: loud) but I guess that’s just how it goes. They too were celebrating a birthday and they outnumbered us (and outvolumned us). So, I would have preferred a quieter ambiance but at least it was lively.
Made reservations in advance and noted we were celebrating a birthday — they surprise-​comped two desserts. I thought that was pretty classy.
All in all I cannot express how pleased we were with the quality of the food. We will definitely be back sooner than later. Also looking forward to trying the other related restaurants now.

We were looking for new places in Charlotte to try for Restaurant Week, and settled on Toscana. I would have given this restaurant 3.5 stars, if not for the awful experience.
For starters, our waiter had the personality of a thumbtack. Didn’t smile once, was unfriendly and the minute we said we would be ordering from the Restaurant Week menu, he basically treated us like we were slumming it. Now, I get it. Waitstaff are faced with lower tips sometimes from people ordering off the fixed menu, and that can be frustrating. But we’re not those people. I was planning on tipping for the price of the food. That is, until he decided to treat us a second-​rate customers.
The food was okay. I had a delicious salad, but was relegated to the only vegetarian option on the main menu. Thankfully, it was a tasty pasta dish. My husband had the crabcake appetizer, which he loved. However, the risotto that was on the menu was not what was served. It was in the menu as lobster and artichoke risotto, and arrived as scallops with some sort of cheese. He said it tasted good, but it wasn’t what he ordered.
At this point, the BUSBOY comes over to clear our dishes. He was literally the friendliest person in the entire place. Case in point: he asked if we would like a «delicious coffee or cappuccino.» We said no, thank you. Two minutes later our WAITER comes over and grunts «Coffee?» at us and when I repeated «No thank you» to him, he just walked away. Horrifying. And solidified his tip at the fixed menu price.
If a restaurant doesn’t want to use Restaurant Week as a way to secure new customers/​business, then don’t do it. I would have rather dropped $ 100.00 at a place that was sincerely interested in retaining me as a regular customer. Very disappointing experience.

Place is tight and loud and a little outdated and the food is expensive. Service was good while not overbearing.
But the food is probably the best we have had in Charlotte. Will definitely go back.

My boyfriend and his family chose to eat here as a celebration after graduation, so we were expecting a fun and easy going night. We made the reservation at 6:30 for 8 people so we would have plenty of time to get there, but about midway through the graduation ceremony they called and told us they moved our reservation to 6 without any explanation.
We arrived at 6:10 (we got there as quickly as we could) and the first thing the hostess says to us, after we tell her the name of the party, is that we’re late and we need to be out by 8 for another large party coming in. We should have left then, but finding a place to eat at 6:30 on a Saturday is not easy.
We sat down and nobody greeted us, spoke to us, or asked if we had any questions about the wine or menu. They simply asked if we were ready to order. We ordered and the food came out approximately 45 minutes later. The food was the only saving grace to this place, but still mediocre in portion size to price. The waiter and hostess was beyond rude and ruined the night for something was supposed to be very joyful. I think the waiter realized how rude he had been and ordered us deserts, but I would hardly call it a favor and more of a pity service since he knew he was already getting an 18% tip included in the check.
There are plenty of other places for authentic Italian and way better service than this place. We will never be going back.

ICK! STAY AWAY!
Went with our dinner group and we were ALL fairly disappointed. First off, we had a party of 10 outside, but they failed to tell us they can’t truly seat large parties outside because they only have small round tables. So a few of us were forced to sit between tables, and eat our food off of two different place settings. It was strange.
Then…the service was… adequate. Our hostess was terribly rude and confused. Literally looked us up and down, looked at our reservation, and pointed as she commanded: «Go sit at the bar.» No explanation. Just go. Sat down, ordered a ($ 12 short G&T) drink and watched her seat other members in our party as soon as they walked in. (The table had been set since before we got there). When we went back to the hostess stand, she looked at us and said «they’re outside» and nothing else, so we just sat ourselves.
And our server? One really can’t complain. He kept our waters full. He marked the tables well. He presented us with specials well… but he just seemed,…terribly annoyed. For a ten top of perfection (drinks, apps, salads, entrees AND desserts) we should have at least gotten a smile. And without asking, he brought us one check, and then was quite visibly annoyed when we asked to separate it. Look, I know separating checks is a true pain in the, uh, neck — but sometimes, no MOST of the time, large parties are going to do that. If you have an issue with this — do not seat large parties.
Aaaaand the food? Unilocal reviewers really threw me off on this one. I want the food that the other four/​five star folks had, because I’m sincerely confused. Maybe Monday night is the 2^nd string kitchen staff because… ugh…So very very ICK. Watered down Carbonara that was dripping (which it NEVER should). Squishy mealy“fresh” mozzerella w/​bland tomatoes. (It’s summer in the south people! Tomatoes you can get right!!) Rubbery lobster that you literally could not CUT — let alone chew. And I had a pork ravioli special that had chewy (not al dente — just chewy) pasta filled with something that had the consistency of (I’m sorry, but it’s true) cat food and though I’ve never really dared to dine on that feline canned delicacy, I would imagine it would taste pretty darned close to what I ate at Toscana’s.
(Oh…and it is NOT the best tiramasu in town as our server boasted. By FAR!!)
I’m used to eating bad food, but for those prices??? For frozen crap??? And utter rudeness??? Ah Southpark — you striketh again. Make sure you’re super snobby and it won’t matter what you put on the plates.
It’s my SUPER pet peeve. I’ll pay almost anything for good food. But hundreds of dollars for food we can’t finish and you couldn’t pay us to take home — and outright snobbery (for whatevr reason)…really gets my goat!
Unless someone tells me that they’ve VASTLY improved, we will NOT be going back. And I wouldn’t suggest anyone else go either!

They will speak Italian to you if you let them… I so miss Firenze!
I was surprised for an amazing birthday dinner at this fabulous establishment. The inside is nice but not too stuffy. We had reservations and were immediately seated. We mentioned to the hostess as we were seated that we just returned from Italy and she asked if we spoke Italian… why yes, yes we do, a little bit anyways. So when our server arrived to the table, he greeted us in Italian and continued to speak Italian to us the entire evening. We ordered our meals «Italian style» ordering a primo then secondo and always ending a fabulous meal with a café/​espresso. We had another event to attend, so we skipped the antipasta but will certain make our way back for more.
The Chianti wine of the day was fantastic! We had the pasta della giorno which was a wonderful cetellini noodle with the most tender beef brisket and pecorino to garnish. Then we enjoyed the sea bass with spinach, fingerling potatoes and the most delicious salami slices. Not too much of anything! We then had the tiramisu (may be one of my favorites) and the vinsanto with cantucci (biscotti). I thought the vinsanto was quite weak, almost a watered down flavor. The biscotti was very good. We ended with an espresso.
I would recommend this restaurant for a nice intimate dinner but also for a small gathering of friends. It would also be a great place to enjoy drinks and share several antipasta dishes. Everything looked so wonderful and it’s nice to know such a great place exists in Charlotte.
Buon apetito!