Mascalzone

This place was fantastic! Delicious homemade pastas (we had the spinach gnocci and tagliatelle with meatballs). Also the tuna tartar was phenomenal! Service was amazing and the manager was very friendly and helpful. If you have room get the gelato! It’s homemade and sooo good! We got a gelato sundae with espresso and it was ridiculously delicious!

It’s a real Italian restaurant!
I am Italian and when I want to eat a good pizza I always come here and it’s like at home :) Every dish they serve it’s a real Italian food, the ingredients are fresh and of a good quality. The service is really nice and most of the waiters are Italian. I especially appreciate Elena, who served me a couple of times, she is accurate but never too intrusive! I’d surely recommend to ask for her if you go to eat at Mascalzone.
This restaurant is always a good choice!

We came in for date night tonight. The restaurant is clean lines with an industrial feel. Really slow on a Tuesday night… had me worried at first! Upon sitting down Juan came and got us water and a wine list! I selected a bottle of tommasi amarone… I’m a sucker for amarone! Not to mention, it was half price, not sure if this is everyday or just during the week! I just won the lottery!!! We selected the cozze en limon, these mussels are Mediterranean and much bigger than PEI, still, very delicious!!! Elana came to our table and brought us the house bread as well on the house! Very delicious, as it’s their pizza dough with marinara sauce on it. Our next course we had the spaghetti volgone and shrimp with risotto. Both dishes were amazing. For dessert, we had the cheesecake and mascarpone gelato. All in all, a great dinner. Would have given 5 stars but had a few miscues. We will be back!

Juan was by far the best waiter I’ve ever had. I felt like royalty and the food was beyond expectations. Very fresh and even more delicious!!! Coming back very soon!!!

I have mixed feelings towards this place. The décor was fantastic and the food was priced decently enough for a slightly more upscale Italian spot. We ordered the carpaccio di polipo to start with, which was my favorite dish of the evening. It was nice and lemony with tomato and arugula and cut in a really cool way. I also ordered a hawaina pizza to split with a friend, kind of just because the pizza options were pretty bland. The desserts were a bit in the small side too, I was a little disappointed.

I’ve had dinner a few times at Mascalzone and it is always consistently delicious.
They gave a large variety of appetizers ranging from inventive bruschetta to tasty mussels. We’ve tried the calamari as well and it was fresh tasting with a delicious marinara sauce.
The few pasta dishes we have tried have all had beautiful handmade pastas with unique sauces. I’ve seen patrons eating pizzas as well and they have all looked really yummy. There is a wood burning pizza oven cooking these delicious looking pies.
Desserts are done really well too. I recommend the gelato. It is rich and creamy.

Five stars for the food, three for the service. I have spent my fair share of time in Italy and can say that, without a doubt, this is the closest to authentic Italian food you will find in Houston. Pizza is spot on and I love the homemade pasta.

First off, you can only do valet or try circling the streets for street parking. Once again, a place that cones off their entire parking lot to get tips for helping you park one inch away is a turn off for me.
Once inside, we got seated in the front facing the bar. We felt intimidated the entire time as we literally were front row watching the entire staff stare back at us the entire night since all the tables were behind us. Not to mention all of the 4 person tables in the middle section had only two chairs and all facing the same direction. It was very weird and very cramped, the waiters kept hitting us as they walked by.
We ordered the fettuccine alla bolognese ($ 16). The fettuccine was a bit hard, even though the tomato meat sauce was ok. Dish was a bit underwhelming as there’s much better ones around town. We also tried out their popular mascalzone pizza ($ 18) which was half calzone with cheese and ham, half pizza w mushrooms, salami and olives. Surprisingly, the calzone part was much better since it was really cheesy. The pizza side was extremely salty and couldn’t even take too many bites without having to gulf down water.
Most of the clientele was a much older crowd and willing to splurge. We had wanted to try this place out, but after our experience, we probably won’t pick it to go back and rather just an ok place that we’ve tried.

Italian place, run by Italians, and highly rated by an Italian. Need I say more?
If you want Italian, then go where the Italians go.
Mascalzone is good, not expensive, and great people work there. I highly recommend it.
I’m gonna have to try the «sad» Calamari and the «microwaved» Carbonara mentioned in other reviews before I comment on that,
I’ll get back to you on that.

Very nice service with reasonable prices. Nice atmosphere reminiscent of Italy with the bright red and green plastic chairs. It’s seems like an adults mostly restaurant but there were multiple families.
Lots of seafood pasta, gnocchi, risotto. The Mascalzone is half pizza, half calzone. Yum!

Great service and great food. We ordered the bruschetta as an appetizer, it was pretty good. They give you complimentary bread and spicy sauce, the spicy sauce is no joke. It’s really really spicy so beware. I asked the waiter what exactly it was and he said it was habaneros with pepper oil. For dinner I ordered the Rigatoni alla Norma and it was DELICIOUS. If you’re a big fan of eggplant — definitely order it.
My boyfriend ordered the Mascalzone which is a half calzone half pizza and he loved it. The portions are pretty big. I would probably share a pizza next time… they are big enough for two people. We had a lot of food leftover. Overall — it was great and I would definitely come back. I want to try the white wine sangria next time!

Y’all. The food is bad. I was reading the reviews and most of the complaints are on service. When you have a toddler and are strict on bedtime *raises hand*, you’re often stuck eating take out. So I thought we’d be okay!
Well…
The calamari was really really sad. It was the saddest mass of frozen small slices of squid covered in batter that I’ve ever seen. There was was maybe a couple pieces of shrimp my shrimp tossed in there and the kale mixed in it was also super small and sad.
The angel hair pasta with mushroom and lump crab and kale. Gollee. It was the most bland blob of $ 24.50 that I’ve ever tasted. The lump crab was sooooooooo small and shredded up that I could taste no flavor of crab whatsoever. It just tasted like noodles in olive oil with mushroom. Really really sad. I wasted so many calories but I’m also too cheap to have food go to waste. I have to eat right?!
My husband had the mascalzone. That was part way decent. It was simple. The pizza portion had a nice sauce topped with real mushrooms, pepperoni and whole olives. Hubby described the calzone part like a kolache but in a pizza since it was ham and cheese. Enh.
I will never eat here again. Too bad.

Long story short:
Food is good but service is really bad from many aspects. Also it is too expensive for the quality provided. I don’t mind pricy restaurant that has unique experience. This one is not one of them. I generally don’t recommend it. Too many better alternatives.

I ordered dinner online, lasagna and chocolate covered profiteroles for dessert. Pick up was easy, I walked in and out. Decent location off of Shepherd just below 10 freeway, they offer complimentary valet parking. I didn’t get to see much of the restaurant as I picked up my to go order quickly but from what I saw, it’s a nice setting with modern décor. Staff was helpful as well. The food was actually quite good but I was disappointed with the portion I received of lasagna. For $ 16 I was expecting a large dinner sized portion but it seemed lacking in size. Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious, but not enough of a portion for dinner. The profiteroles were decent but I wouldn’t order them again. All in all a good place for dinner, if you have the extra cash. The food won’t disappoint you though. 3 stars for portion size and cost of said portion.

Why are my 1-​star reviews the most popular? I receive positive reinforcement for being a Negative Nancy? I guess that’s cool.
My poor experience left me so scarred that I’m afraid to return. With a dinner reservation, we still waited over 20 minutes to be seated. There’s not much space between the entrance and the bar, so expect to be constantly moving to get out of someone’s way.
The service was incredibly slow. Water, beer, wine– we had to ask 2 – 3 times before any drinks were served. God forbid I make a bratty request for water without ice. Obviously, they forgot my request.
The menu looked really exciting, and we each got a different dish to try. My friend was presented with the ravioli, but he had ordered the lobster squid ink tagliarini. I know this because I saw him point at the item when he was ordering. Our server was clearly annoyed at us for his own mistake.
When the squid ink pasta arrived, it was underwhelming. The lobster was rubbery and overcooked. My scallops and gnocchi dish was atrocious, and I don’t often have that opinion about food. The scallops were EXTREMELY salty, and the pesto sauce tasted bitter and burnt. Let me be clear, I’ve witnessed many people send back a dish to the kitchen, but this is the first time I’ve personally done it. I’m sure the server hated us even more after I requested the seafood risotto instead, but even at the risk of him spitting in my food (it happens), I couldn’t tolerate another bite of the gnocchi.
Of course, by the time the risotto arrived, everyone else was done with their entrees. I quickly scarfed down a few bites, and it was actually excellent. I just hope they didn’t add any «special» ingredients…
I also tried the crab meat tortelloni, and the general consensus around the table was that the food just wasn’t impressive. At this point, we were all just exasperated and ready to leave. I like to end every meal with something sweet, but no dessert was had here. I went home to my Ben and Jerry’s.

Amazing gem off Shepherd! Clean and modern interior. Mid to higher priced Italian.
Pros:
— ez to get to
— nice valet
— amazing service
— order the mussels! Fresh and perfectly done.
— seafood with ink pasta was divine
— dark chocolate soufflé with housemate gelato was amazing
— hazelnut gelato very smooth and the blood orange gelato very refreshing
— want to try the ½ pizza calzone combo because we sat in front of the flying pizza guy
Areas of improvement:
— the bread they brought out was hard — then the waiter brought out freshly baked — night and day difference!
— the outside patio looked hot! Perhaps they could put up a pergola or plants.

First of all, this place closes at 2am on Fridays and Saturdays. That’s already a plus in my books. At the end of a long week, sometimes you just wanna crack open a bottle of wine and eat some good food without having to slave over it in the kitchen. Well, I’m happy to say that Mascalzone is definitely the place you can do just that! They’re open late and they don’t stop serving entrees from the kitchen until about 11pm. This place was perfect for my late Friday night mealtime around 9:30pm.
As soon as we pulled up into the restaurant parking lot we were greeted by the valet service. I’m unsure as to whether valet is the only option as I did not see any self parking signs. So please have cash handy for the valet if you plan to come here to dine. Something interesting about the valet at this restaurant is that they don’t issue a ticket; instead, the valet gentleman said he would remember our faces and the car that belonged to us. This made me feel a little nervous, but I figured he wouldn’t give our car away to a different driver lol.
After we valet’ed, we were pleasantly greeted by the owner/​manager at the door. He seated us and made sure everyone in the restaurant was well taken care of. I love it when restaurants are so warm and inviting. He even got his hands dirty and helped make the pizza/​calzone dough from scratch! We could see him from the open oven area tossing pizza dough over his head haha. Anyway, back to the food.
You MUST ORDER the fried calamari with kale chips! This was such a great combination. The calamari were not overly breaded (A+) and the kale chips were crisped to perfection.
For my entrée I ordered the angel hair homemade pasta with lump crab meat, wild mushrooms, and kale. This was so tasty! I have never had homemade pasta before so I will say that I was unsure as to whether the noodles were supposed to be so soft… by «soft» I mean, the homemade angel hair pasta reminded me of the thin noodles served in won ton noodle soup that had been slightly over cooked. The angel hair didn’t have a «chewy al dente» feel to them, but again, I wasn’t sure if that’s just how the texture of homemade pasta was supposed to be like. I didn’t really mind it, I think I was just more surprised at the difference in texture. The overall flavor of the dish was nice. Definitely an olive oil sauce as you can taste the big flavor of their olive oil in your first bite. The lump crab meat was fresh and not fishy, also there were no crunchy crab «membranes» in the dish. Some restaurants have a lot of difficulty with peeling the lump meat out and leaving the membrane behind. I absolutely LOVED the mushrooms and kale. The wild mushrooms were so flavorful on their own. Highly recommend this dish if you don’t want any cream or tomato based sauces. The price is a little steep at around $ 24.00 for a bowl of pasta, but the portions are large enough to require a to-​go container.
For dessert you MUST TRY their Nutella Affogato. All kinda of YES. I really wish this affogato was made with the espresso and gelato «affogato base» and then modified with the Nutella, but the gelato and Nutella was also delicious. This is a great dessert that can be shared between two people. Highly recommend it for gelato and Nutella lovers.

Mascalzone is a new restaurant that opened up close to where I work on Shepherd so I checked it out for some coworkers for lunch. It’s a cool-​looking restaurant with a modern look and pop art adorning the walls. I lived in Italy for a month and I will say that the menu is large and authentic.
I went with the veal shank risotto which was $ 22. A bit expensive but it was worth it. The meat was tender and the risotto was great. We splurged and got some gelato– I went with the strawberry. Some of the best gelato I’ve had. I would really give Mascalzone 4.5 stars because it’s a tad too expensive but I’m looking forward to my next trip to try some of their gnocchi or pizza!

I have eaten here twice now. First visit was ordering the seafood pasta and the second visit was the seafood pizza (it was on Friday’s during Lent :)).
Both visits were pleasurable. The food was very good and plentiful in size. In other words I got my fill.
My service was also very good both times. I like the interior décor of this restaurant that has a bar along with two dining rooms that are connected. Good background music too.
They have a nice and varied Italian menu here that includes homemade pastas with certain meals. The wine list varies from $ 30 to $ 900 bottles.
My only negative with this restaurant is that you just about have to valet park. It’s free but of course you have to «tip» the valets for doing something that you should be able to do yourself. This is your only parking choice as street parking near the restaurant is practically impossible.
This is a nice restaurant that I will return to. It could be a 5 star for me in the future after I try something that doesn’t have seafood! LOL!

4 star food, but 3 star service.
When I first read the reviews for this place, I was really excited for great food and fantastic service. Unfortunately, only the food was impressive.
The décor of this place is cheerful yet intimate. I’m assuming they went for a European restaurant look with an American amount of space between tables.
The menu was quite extensive, and it took a while to go through everything. Honestly, so many dishes looked delicious. They have the most interesting ingredients for their pastas, risottos, and main courses, so read carefully! I decided to go with the Ravioli Aurora, and I had no regrets. I’d happily order it again since I’m such a fan of spinach and mushrooms. The sauce was flavorful as well. The portion looked slightly smaller than the pasta portions, but I was very happy. We also ordered the Joel Gott Cabernet Sauvignon for the table, and it went very nicely with the meal (and affordable!)
The only part of the meal I didn’t enjoy was the service. It started out pretty nicely, but towards the end, our server just kind of disappeared. He took 10 – 15 minutes to get back to us each time he said he would bring us a menu or the check. Additionally, we had asked to split the check at the beginning of the meal, which he agreed to, but he still put everything on one bill at the end. This is all easily fixed, so I’d still give this place another try if I’m ever in the Heights again.