Borrelli’s

Their pizza came highly recommended so I had to check it out for myself. It was only OK. It had good flavor but it was quite salty. We also had a Caesar salad and it wasn’t very exciting. While the service was actually very nice and friendly, I can’t see coming back for the food with so many other good choices nearby.

Get another waiter, I have been there 2 times, unbelievable when she tells us she forgot what we oderderd on both occasions, she doesn’t concentrate, otherwise the food is great

Really tasty food, closest thing to Filipi’s Pizza Grotto in North County. –1 star because the service was a bit slow and apathetic.

We have gone to Borrelli’s several times. This last time the table was smeared with greasy butter when we sat down and the silverware was dirty inside the rolled napkin. When we received our order, my husband’s salad had a half dollar sized piece of plastic within the salad that fortunately he caught before he swallowed it and choked. When we told the manager, Pedro, about the plastic, he laughed and said «oh it’s only from cheese.» My husband mentioned most restaurants would take that seriously and perhaps offer their guests a new salad, a free dessert or something to make up for this. Pedro laughed and said, «I know you guys have been here before and will come back.» Well, Pedro, because of your attitude we will NOT be back.

Very good food. I had the ½ spaghetti ½ ravioli dish with meatballs. The sauce was homemade wonderful. The meatballs were so yummy, but I only got ½ a meatball cuz my hubby stole the other 1 ½ off my plate. He’s lucky I love him! My daughters had the baked ziti and the cheese ravioli. We all loved our dishes. We will definitely be back. I’ve heard the pizza is to die for… next time :)

Came in for lunch Noone around to seat us down tables dirty waitress didn’t even look at us no menu after ten minute later bad services today

Borrelli’s is great! We’d always gotten take out only because the parking lot is packed however this weekend we went for lunch and ate in with the entire family and loved it! Attentive, helpful staff, excellent home cooked dishes as always :)
Half of our check was ordered off of the lunch menu, under $ 10, other half of the regular, up to $ 21, all of it y u m !! We heard about it at my kid’s school, yeah we’ll keep going back, big claps!

So sad how far Borrelli’s has fallen. Pizzas are burnt and have no flavor at all. Seems they are living in the name which has been around for decades.

I decided to pop in here for a quick take out lunch for the first time today. The prices are pretty good, with my eggplant sammy costing me about $ 8 or $ 9. It came with a large side salad and garlic bread.
The service was good and I did not have to wait very long. They really should get someone to watch the door because when everyone is busy I just sort of stood there holding my empty stomach wondering if I should try some place else or not. Thankfully they noticed in time and got my take out order out to me quickly during the busy lunch time hour.
The eggplant sammy was good. The side salad was also good. I guess I had hoped for a little more flavor in my dish and wished that the eggplant was not cut so thickly.
In all I would go here again in a pinch!

This is a real nice down home little bit of Italian. I enjoyed my entire meal. I had the Penne pasta with mushroom meat sauce. Service was fast and friendly. Menu prices were very reasonable.

I love this place. One for the Italian ambience, two for the spacious seating, and especially because of the food. They have amazing lunch specials for a great price. The sauce so the best!!! I recommend the ravioli with meat sauce. Check it out! You will not be disappointed

Is it possible to give zero stars? I’d rather light 80 dollars on fire than enjoy the service at this back yard pot luck masquerading as an Italian restaurant/​pizzeria.
Step one: walk in.
Step two: sit in your bread crumb, sauce encrusted vinyl throne
Step three: meet your server extraordinaire, the most unapologetic apathetic smiling 55 yr old woman
Hi, we’ll have the following drinks… we’ll need another few minutes for food orders
30 seconds later: no drinks in hand– «you ready?»
Um no
Repeat 3 times
Order: I’ll have baked ziti.
What dressing would you like?
Italian
2) I’ll have the frutti demare
Ok
2) can I pick a dressing too?
Oh ya it comes with a salad
2) I’m deathly allergic to carrots
Yup no carrots
3) I’ll have veal Marsala
Chicken Marsala
3) nope veal
Okay chicken
3) veal
Yes I heard you veal
Salads all arrive, with the added bonus of potential anaphylactic shock, hooray! Carrots everywhere!
2)I’m sorry. I don’t need the salad.
–oh I’ll just get you new lettuce. (Turns to walk away) wait! Do you just want the minestrone vegetable soup?
2) carrots?
–oh ya
Fast forward 30 min.
Entrees arrive…
1) baked ziti is literally orange. Patrons 2 and 3 are much more horrified than very polite patron 1
2) food was actually delicious still no salad
3) veal Marsala is in fact a chicken breast covered in mushroom gravy with crunchy fettuccini next to it also doused in poor mans Heinz mushroom gravy
Patron 2 asks can we have forks and my salad?
–oh there are carrots everywhere
2) ok can you just use the Cesar mix and put Italian on it?
–oh ya sure!
Patron 3 eats three bites and some of his added order of calamari (quite possibly onion rings and served with ranch)
Patron 1 politely eats half of the orange dish
Flag down apathy Annie
3) hey this doesn’t look or taste like veal
-(irritated) ya that’s because it’s chicken
Pause…
–oh well I’ll just take it back
3) no I don’t want to wait it’s ok
-(eye roll) well fine
Can we have the check?
Fast forward 10 min
Check lists: $ 80
Including 4 $ charge for Cesar salad side
And lists «chicken Marsala»
Please just dont

We’ve ordered pizza from this location twice so far. We usually get it to-​go since we live around the corner. They don’t deliver so that’s a pretty big bummer, but the pizza tastes really great so it’s worth going to pick it up.
The staff is always friendly and there’s a pick up window for fast service. We usually get a large pizza and it feeds 3 people perfectly. If you have 4 or more I recommend 2 large pizzas. The sauce on the pizzas tastes amazing and fresh. I love the pepperoni pizza, it does have a lot of cheese on it so it’s best to let it cool first so all the cheese doesn’t slide right off. The supreme pizza had the perfect combo of goodies on it.
This location is definitely a hidden gem I’m glad I found! I highly recommend try it out, your taste buds won’t be disappointed.

My wife and I have eaten there many times. Good food, good service, good ambience. While it may not be an ‘upscale’ restaurant, it is an excellent choice when you just don’t want to cook, and you are in the mood for some good old fashioned Italian comfort food. It is actually possible to have a solid dinner with wine for two for under $ 60. Thank you, Borelli.
Oh, and they do publish coupons in Community guide.

Great pizza and antipasta! I’ve eaten there once (I usually order to-​go) and it’s a little «senior citizeny» but it’s clean and the foods good. They take a little bit long to get the food out both there and to go but it’s worth it :)

Thanks…
Stoped in to pick up dinner and it was late…
The lady’s greeted me with a smile and said we are open…
Placed my order to go and was on my way in les than 5 minutes…
This is the best food in town and the only thing better than the food is the service…

I am very disappointed with this place. I’ve lived in this area for 12 years and I’ve gone here a few times but over the years it has declined in their food. The decore is very outdated and the food is bland. I ordered the baked ziti, I’ve had this at Bucca de pepo and Bucca de pepo is better than this. I can tell the pasta came from a box and so did the sauce. The only edible thing on my plate was the cheese… The bread was definitely frozen and just heated up in a microwave. Not what I want when I go out for dinner. The waitress was very nice but pushy. We haven’t even sat down yet and she’s asking us what we want to order. Just not good. I took my friend here to try it. But this place is a hit or miss unfortunately. :(I don’t recommend this pace. Definitely better Italian restruants in Encinitas

I now live in Chula Vista with my wife and don’t make it to North County that often but my wife and I found ourselves in Encinitas this evening and decided to stop for dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant — Borrelli’s.
This place used to be my dad’s favorite Italian restaurant until he passed away in July 2011. I have found it very hard to go back but wanted to honor him in a special way tonight.
My wife and I got there around 6 PM and found the place packed (even though it was pouring rain outside). There were also a lot of people picking up take out orders. We were lucky to get seated right away.
A waitress (whom I recognized from years ago) promptly came by and took our drink order and then took our dinner order. Fifteen minutes later, our pizza arrived piping hot and was delicious!
We ordered a small Chicken Spinach alfredo
and Greek pizza (they let us do half and half) which was delicious! I really love their pizzas because they use fresh ingredients and not canned stuff. And yes, you can taste the difference! In fact, the pizza was so good that my wife and I bought one «to go» and gave it to her folks for dinner. Her father commented that was the best pizza that he has ever eaten!
Thanks for the great food and I look forward to returning soon. It was well worth the drive from Chula Vista. Please don’t change a thing!

How awesome is Borellis?! It’s absolutely awesome. As you approach this strip mall based run down restaurant, you’ll think to yourself, Naw this is no good. As you enter, you’ll notice an outdated and stuffy restaurant. That’s about all the negative you’ll get, it’s all positive from here on out.
The staff is sweet and friendly, the food is wonderful, plentiful and flavorful and the price is actually not half bad. I’ve been a regular here for quite sometime and borellis has never disappointed. The lasagna here is absolutely fantastic. I wouldn’t even consider going to a chain restaurant such as the Olive Garden while this little gem is in the neighborhood.

Another instance of really looking forward to a restaurant and coming away extremely disappointed. We’ve been meaning to come to Borrelli’s for almost a year now and finally getting the chance to come here scored one up to an extreme letdown.
On first inspection, the place is a bit cozy. It’s setup like a grandmother’s house; pretty and homey, but not spectacular or even more than a little interesting. The whole of it could use a week closed up for some serious cleaning, if not a welcome makeover to give it a more contemporary feel. We sat down, got our drinks pretty quick, and ordered an appetizer. That’s when I noticed my first problem. After drinking almost half of it, I realized my water glass had a good mark of pink lipstick on the INSIDE of the rim. I’m not a mysophobe or anything, but this is still gross by anyones’ standard. Unfortunately, in my bid to figure out which side of the glass the pink was on, I smeared off the evidence and couldn’t send it back. Still, my glass stood half empty and ignored the rest of the night.
Then came the Fried Zucchini appetizer. These consisted of overly firm, obviously once frozen, pre-​breaded and reheated logs of barely edible veggie chunks. They were served on a bed of thinly shredded lettuce that stuck to the slices as they wilted, making this whole dish gross and very amateurish. Angelo’s down the street does this fresh and it’s pretty brilliant. The fact that a dive burger joint can do what a more upscale Italian place can’t is VERY telling. If it had just been me eating, I would have cancelled the rest of my order and left right there.
My mother had the Spaghetti in Marinara which came with a loaf of garlic bread. The bread itself smells great, but the taste is very basic, a simple butter with nothing else for color and, I assume, a powdered garlic on top because there seemed to be no hint of solid chunks that you would normally see in a fresh and homemade version of this dish. The pasta shared this basic concept, the sauce itself all tomato with little to no herb or spice, leaving it very acidic, yet boring.
My girlfriend choose her favorite Italian fare, the Manicotti. It came with a side salad that came from a bag of mix that had been in the fridge a little too long. There was a good amount of red along the spines of the lettuce stems, a good indicator that it’s time to throw the rest of the mix down the disposal … or just go to Sprouts up the street every morning and buy a number of fresh heads to chop up throughout the day.
This isn’t tough, people.
The Manicotti itself was short, cut into half the normal size of a manicotti to make it easier for the chefs in the back to inject the filling. And that filling, WAY too much egg. Yes, it made the mixture very firm on cooking, which I assume was what Borrelli’s was going for to make the dish easier to manage, but it made the taste very unappealing. Each bite reminded me of something else, the saltiness of the ricotta lost in that pungent flavor of a bad quiche. And it was served with a side of Spaghetti in Alfredo. The Alfredo was alright, mine is better, meaning it fails to live up to the cardinal rule of going out to eat, make the customer know why they want to come to your restaurant instead of staying home and doing it themselves.
Which brings me to my Calzone, the only saving grace of the evening. Good crust, brushed well with oil and garlic, and a nice and salty filling of pepperoni and ricotta. It even reheated well this morning, making me think that the only reason to come here would be for the pizza takeout and nothing else. In fact, if we ever do come again, it will probably just be for a small pie or two to test those waters and give-​up on everything else they have to offer.
All of that and you can add in cleaning dirty tables with a nice and bleachy cleanser that they wipe down right next to eating customers, an Italian dressing that tastes straight from the bottle, and one dish from an adjoining table that was topped with a cheese or sauce that smelled so sour I was happy to be leaving. As is, the majority of the clientele here seems to be older, or people who are coming to remember how good it used to be or just to escape the heat. Once they go (and I don’t mean leaving for the night), I’m not sure what this place will have left.
With all of the pre-​made and frozen food they seemed to be serving, Borrelli’s feels one step away from an episode of Gordan Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. If you do come, come for the pizza and do takeout; beware of everything else. If I had done that, I may have given a 3-​Star review, but with the misfortune of having sat down and tried more than a pizza … well, you see the marks above.