Vallone’s

This was my first time at this restaurant and it was amazing. The staff was courteous and management amazing. They even offered us a bowl of their great chili since we had never been here before. Definitely try the lobster bites — yummmm. Oh leave plenty of room for dessert. I already know which one I’ll pick when I go back:-)

I’m here pretty often for a high end steak restaurant. Food was good as always, you can see my other reviews. Staff was friendly, a tad slow again, but nothing too bad.
Dropping a star because of the charge for $ 5 per person for brining out extra plates to serve a cake bought in. That is ridiculous. So I see a charge for $ 45 for this service and questioned the server, who said he couldn’t do anything, then got the manager. She asked if anyone told us there would be a charge when we brought it in, I went back to my table and asked, the person who handed the cake to the hostess, said no. I let the manager know, and she says, sorry, but thats the policy. So kind of dumb for me to go ask when it didnt matter… and I let her know that. She went and then asked the «partner» for Mr Vallones, and said that he also said he would not take care of the $ 45 charge. I said No problem, but let MrVallones know I’ll remember it.
So all my parties usually go there, in groups of 4 – 30 people at a time. I’ll take my business to another place.
Bone is ribeye is good as always.

One of the best restaurants we have been to. There were six of us and we each ordered different items and everyone of us left so incredibly pleased. It was great service, rest atmosphere and even better food! Go here!

Came here for the first time for a friend’s birthday. Décor is nice, and restaurant has a nice vibe to it. However, food was a major disappointment. Ordered the 55 day aged New York Strip, which was supposed to be medium rare and was also $ 60, and received the most dry and overcooked steak ever. Told the waiter my steak was overcooked, and he tells me to cut another piece, as if by some miracle this other piece would turn out to be properly cooked. Was given another steak, which came properly cooked this time, but was still disappointed. Such a strange taste and char on the steak. Not sure what technique or aging process the restaurant uses, but seems like one that wastes a perfectly good cut of beef. Very disappointed with this restaurant, especially considering the price. There are way better steaks in Houston for a considerable amount less than what you’ll pay here. By the way, this restaurant is the first restaurant in my life where I’ve had to send back my food. Didn’t expect it to be at a pricey place like this. Won’t be coming back, unfortunately.

To start on a positive note, the warm sourdough bread was really the only highlight of my experience at Vallone’s.
We arrived early for lunch (lured in for the $ 9.95 Chicken Fried Steak lunch deal), and had a «server-​in-​training» so we were constantly bombarded by at least two people throughout the meal. I felt a little uncomfortable as they stood near the table the whole time, speaking to each other even as they were serving us. They were very heavy on the upsell, even though we just wanted to get in and get out as quickly as possible, not order multiple courses. As I mentioned, I had read about the Chicken Fried Steak and was pretty disappointed when the chewy, poorly fried dish arrived. The breading fell off of each bite, and you definitely get what you pay for in terms of meat quality, despite what I had read about on the good olé’ interwebs. The gravy was thick and gelatinous in consistency, and the mashed potatoes were swimming in pools of butter, which wasn’t terrible, just not the most visually appetizing. We also tried the chianti braised short rib tortellini, which fell short in so many ways. It was a tiny portion of undercooked pasta and dry filling. To top it all off, one of the servers grated cheese on my lap and splashed water on my plate while refilling my glass. Maybe dinner service is better, but I don’t really want to come back and find out.

Food was great. Had a $ 1000 gift certificate. 9 guests. The 55 day aged steak was great. The seafood tower phenomenal. Our server, Dustin, not so good. I expected much better service. Dessert menus were distributed then collected without asking if we wanted dessert. With the great steak house options available, I would recommend going somewhere else.

HRW #6 — joining Sandy H’s RSVP edition
Parking garage is now free.
The red velvet cake is still terrible. And much smaller than last year, which might actually be a plus. Appetizers are still quite tasty, beef is good but not noteworthy. Service is excellent. My previous opinion hasn’t changed much — I would still only go for drinks and apps. Way too many other options in the area.

I dined at Vallone’s for my birthday and the meal and service at the table was fabulous. My grievance is with the Staff at the bar. After eating, my friends and I moved to the lounge to talk. I went to the bar to get a round of drinks. The bartender ran my card and did not return the card. When i realized I didn’t have the card the very next morning, I went back to Vallone’s and asked about my card being in lost and found. I was told there was no card there and they would call me if they found it.
Since I viewed Vallone’s as a classy place, I decided to wait until the next day to see if the card would be returned. I did not hear back. That same day I called my card company to deactivate the card. The last authorized charge that I made was Vallone’s at the bar. At that point my card company showed that a cash advance withdrawal was made on my card, which was a fraudulent charge. The card company dismissed the charge. I am just disheartened that a theft of my card would occur at a place where I enjoyed the table service and even gave a nice tip due to being pleased with the table service.
Although the service at the table was nice, I do believe the bartender did steal my card and use it to make a fraudulent charge. I will not return to Vallone’s and am very disappointed to have to go through the hoops of fraud resolution as a conclusion to my birthday weekend.
I have mentioned this to all of the friends that attended with me this past weekend and we will not be returning.

The restaurant is gorgeous with low lit chandeliers, warm hues of rich wood, lots of light from the east facing floor to ceiling windows, large half round booths, and the huge walk-​in wine room. Vallone’s has stolen my heart on the build out, interior design, and ambiance. The one thing that I would like to see them improve upon when it comes to the dining experience is their music selection. I really like when the restaurant sticks to a theme, but when the music is bipolar like at Vallone’s, it makes for an irritating experience.
The service from not only our server, but all of the staff was on point and our waiter was fantastic with how attentive he was to the details. No matter the question, request, or complaint, he handled everything like the seasoned professional waiter that he is. He made us laugh several times and was engaging and intriguing without lingering at our table longer than he should have. For the life of me I can’t remember his name and due to the heavy pain killers I was on at the time, I had completely forgotten to write it down.
The food is outstanding and there is almost nothing I had to eat that I wouldn’t order again. However, I would venture to order other menu options since the variety I had from both their Houston Restaurant Week (HRW) and regular menu. Alright, here comes the long description of all the food since I dined here with my mom and one of my best friends for my first «official» big dinner out after having an extensive surgery. Between the three of us, no one ordered the same dishes, so there’s a lot for me to write about!
My mom ordered the chicken fried quail, the wedge salad, the chicken involtini, and the chocolate tower. All I have to say about all of my mom’s choices, is that I was entirely impressed with how good it all was and how well prepared it was. The quail was perfectly fried like good fried chicken, her salad was a perfect blend of tangy dressing with a decent cut of ice berg lettuce, the chicken was far more tender than I was expecting it to be, and the chocolate tower was unbelievably good.
My friend ordered the corn raviolini, the Chianti braised short rib tortellini, and the Tex Mex. The Chianti braised short rib tortelli was a beautiful blend of flavors that seemed to mash Texas BBQ with tender Italian pasta. The Tex Mex is probably the only dish of everything we had that I would say is a bit of a miss on the menu. I know that the chef is trying to accommodate more options on the menu, but the combination of a steak with two cheese enchiladas is a heavy meal combination and a little too high on sodium.
Mom and I split the foie gras, which was not part of the HRW menu, but we couldn’t resist trying it. I was so impressed with how buttery, smooth, and gently prepared the foie gras was. In addition to the foie gras, I also ordered the tomato soup, summer salad, gulf red snapper francese, and the snowball cake. The tomato soup was just as good as what I make at home, but the addition of melted mozzarella and fresh basil made for a really tasty soup. It was so good that I’m going to start adding fresh buffala mozzarella and fresh basil to top my homemade tomato soup from now on. The salad and the fish were also very good and I would absolutely order them again.
The only miss from my selections was the snowball cake. It was pretty underwhelming based on the flavor. I was expecting the coconut and vanilla to stand out a lot more than what they did and the cotton candy was an odd addition to the dessert. In fact, I would say that the cotton candy was pretty unnecessary and seemed to distract the flavor of the dessert altogether. The moistness was on point with the cake, although it’s not something I would order again, especially with that chocolate tower on the menu.
My biggest pet peeve as to why I didn’t give Vallone’s a 5 star review has everything to do with the parking situation. This is out in the Memorial area so there’s no excuse to take up all of the parking spaces in front of the restaurant for «complimentary» valet. It’s my opinion that these spaces should be left for customers that prefer to self-​park and the valet should park cars somewhere else. I find it to be absolutely unnecessary to be forced into paying someone a tip to park my car in the very spaces that they are taking up that I could have otherwise parked myself in.

This is for their HRW 2015 menu.
First off, this place is very pretty. I would recommend guys to take their ladies here on a date. However, the food is just okay. I really want to like this place a lot because it’s a Tony Vallone restaurant… and you would think the food here is spectacular. Anyway, I was only okay about it.
The lasting impression I have here is their red velvet cake and how it tastes like it’s been sitting in the fridge for a few days. Yes, it was not appetizing and it looked like a cake from Chucky Cheese. Not impressed at all. A friend of mine warned me about getting that cake (because… you know… I LOVE red velvet) and I insisted because how can Vallone’s screw it up?! Well, they did.
Off their 4 course HRW menu, I tried their corn raviolini, wedge salad, chicken involtini, and snowball cake (and red velvet cake). The corn raviolini was amazing! Tiny little square pasta stuffed with corn filling. I wish that was my meal because it was that good. The wedge salad was just okay and it wasn’t a wedge. The salad was a halved lettuce with fixings on the top. My friend and I were disappointed because we were expecting an actual wedge. Anyway, the chicken involtini was okay. Very filling and very flavorful, but not something I would want to go back for. The snowball cake is a coconut cake with a marshmallow cream top, which is topped with a pink cotton candy. It was very pretty to look at, but the cake was just okay. It didn’t make me want to go back in for another bite like how I normally would with a good cake. And then the red velvet… sigh.
Overall, service and presentation was great. I was just not impressed with this restaurant and the food they served (other than the raviolini). Do I recommend it? Not really, but you can try it out for yourself and see.
There’s self parking in the garage if you don’t want to valet.

I came here recently with my parents and I LOVED it! I ordered «the tex» which included 2 enchiladas and a 6oz filet. It was soooooo good! You share the sides with your table and we got the whipped Yukon gold potatoes, the caramelized cauliflower, and the roasted baby carrots. Everything was perfect. To top it off, we ordered the baked Alaska for dessert (plenty to take home) and since we were there for a family occasion, they brought us out a big piece of pink cotton candy in a martini glass!

I came here with my sisters and her two friends for HRW. It’s a beautiful restaurant near Memorial City Mall. Great service! They were very attentive and nice. I chose the corn ravioli, summer salad, and «The Tex» which is a filet with cheese enchiladas. Loved the corn ravioli, because it tasted like truffle oil :) the summer salad was alright. My filet was good and the cheese enchiladas were fine. It’s a nice restaurant, but the concept seems confused. Fresh pasta to enchiladas to modern American? My red velvet was sad. It didn’t taste like anything and it looked like a cake that was thrown together last minute.

I came here for the first time on a Saturday evening at 7pm, during Houston Restaurant Week. I was a bit surprised that when we arrived the place was almost empty– not necessarily a good sign on a Saturday evening. The place filled up a bit later (closer to 9), but I’m not sure if that’s typical for the place or just a fluke that one night.
I did like how they had our table set for 3 so that once we checked in with the hostess, she took us to our seats and everything was ready. The HRW menu was set with 4 courses, and since it was our first visit we decided to stick to the HRW menu. While everything we ate was good, nothing I had really blew me away. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad — it just wasn’t anything different than what you would get at any other steak house around town.
I started wtih the Chicken Fried Broken Arrow Ranch Quail. Not knowing what in the world that meant, I asked our waitress for a better description. What she described was mostly that a quail is a small bird, smaller than a chicken, but it’s fried and tastes just like chicken. What I got was a few small bites of fried quail, which did indeed taste like fried chicken, on top of a few small scrambled eggs. The quail had a sort of smoky honey flavor that was tasty. My husband had the Corn Raviolini, and he loved it. Said it was the most flavorful ravioli that he’s ever had. The dish came with about 5 small ravioli bites, so I didn’t get to try any before he devoured it.
Second course I had the summer salad. It was a large plate of salad, and it was once again tasty, but nothing stood out to me as amazing. Very straightforward description on the menu as to what you get.
Third, I chose the Gulf Red Snapper Francese. It’s my own fault for not realizing that means the fish is battered and fried, which I believe takes all the flavor out of fish. The dish was decent — lots of flavor from the sauce, the lemon, and the capers– but the flavor of the fish was completely drowned out. I’m a huge fan of Red Snapper, and I love the flavor, so I was disappointed that the fish flavor was ruined by the frying. My brother tried The Tex, which is a filet with cheese enchiladas, because if you’re going to promote cheese enchiladas at a steak house, they must be pretty good, right? Again, nothing too special with these things — you can probably get better enchiladas at a Tex-​Mex restaurant, and at a cheaper price. We were disappointed in the lack of originality with the enchiladas, while the steak was decent.
Finally, the icing on the cake (literally), dessert. I had ordered the red velvet cake, and was again pretty disappointed when it was served to me covered in sprinkles. When it first came out, I thought «is there an 8-​year old having a birthday that is supposed to get a slice of cake?» but no, that is Vallone’s version of the cake. I say Vallones, but it was obviously a pre-​made cake that has been cut from a larger sheet cake that was pulled from the freezer. Absolutely not the best cake, and I was so embarrassed by the sprinkles that I had them wrap it up to go. Again, not the worse dessert, but definitely not what you want to see when you’re eating dinner at an upscale restaurant.
We ordered off the HRW menu, had 2 drinks each during the course of dinner, and after tax and tip the bill came out to over $ 300 for 3 people. For the quality of the food, it was absolutely not worth the money. Perhaps they have better items that are not on the HRW menu (the salt fish sounds interesting!), but if this is how Vallone’s hopes to get people to come back at full price they did a poor job of convincing me.

I came here for Houston Restaurant Weeks with some friends. For the four course tasting menu, I had the: quail-​which was really good, gumbo ($ 9 supplement)-didn’t like it at all, the filet ($ 14 supplement)-not that flavorful, and banana pudding-​above average banana pudding. We also ordered off of the regular menu truffled mac and cheese– good truffle flavor but no actual truffles and tableside bananas foster-​which was bomb dot com. Bananas foster and HRW prices pushed the rating to 4 instead of 3. I think if I had paid regular price, I would have been a bit disappointed. Service was good, as we had several different people checking on us throughout the night.

Now here is a restaurant that I really enjoyed. It has probably been two decades since I last was at the Vallone’s in the Galleria. As a matter of fact prior to finding them on HRW I thought they had closed.
I went there for lunch around 2pm and decided to sit in the lounge as opposed to the main dining room. Even though there was only one other table, and they were almost finished, the service was very sporadic at best.
For lunch I chose the Braised Beef Tortellini which were amazing, flavor was excellent and the Cognac sauce is exceptional. For my second course I had the Hanger steak, which was cooked and seasoned to perfection. I really could not have asked for a better dish.
For dessert I opted for the much talked about banana pudding, while really good, it was a bit too sweet for my taste.
The food is really exceptional, the service was a bit lacking and I even had to remind the server that I would like some bread, but I guess it could have been due to the fact that I arrived late for lunch and he was taking care of the bar patrons.
When I go back I would probably choose the main dining room.

SO GOOD. My husband and I went here for a nice date and we were blown away. The food is delicious. I had pasta and he got the bone in filet. That’s right, bone in filet. It is hands down the best steak we’ve ever had.
We will definintely be back here!

We had a decent experience here with great service and good food. We came here for Houston Restaurant Weeks and tried their featured menu.
Even though the braised short rib tortellini was like eating mush inside pasta, the cognac sauce over it was good.
The salmon was cooked to perfection, but the squash succotash it sat atop was like a pumpkin overload. I didn’t like it with my salmon. Their cheese enchiladas were amazing and the 6 oz filet it came with was tender and delicious.
Now to desserts. The banana pudding was tasty and their chocolate tower was decadent. I would order the banana pudding again for sure.

I think they have the B-​team on for lunch… Our waiter had no clue on a wine recommendation, so called over someone who appeared to be a manager or (hopefully not) a sommelier. My question was, «what wine should I pair with the crab cake?» The question in return was, «white or red?»
Perplexing. I want white, of course. When I finally got a recommendation out of him, he seemed very vague and unsure of himself… I think they need some more training for all of their staff in this area.
The crab cake was ok, but there was a lot of mayonnaise-​like filler in it. My lunchmate’s chicken fried steak was diner-​quality… Also ok, but certainly not what I’d expect from a place with the Vallone name on it.
All in all, I was not impressed by anything other than how pretty the restaurant is. With Perry’s right down the street, I see no need to go back.

Let’s break this down bit by bit —
Thursday night, no reservation, no issue getting in. Yay! Hostess was ingenuine — every table she sat was concluded with «Enjoy!». Kind of lackluster and aloof.
One waiter came over with a wine menu and asked if we wanted drinks. I ordered a house cabernet, water, and my husband ordered water. Another waiter came over shortly thereafter and asked for our drink order — so now we aren’t sure who will be waiting on us.
The meat wheel was presented soon after, and we made our choices — I ordered an 8 oz filet, cooked medium with a side of bernaise. Husband ordered bone in filet cooked medium.
The bread is OUTSTANDING. They serve what I am assuming is european butter just soft enough to glide over the bread and the taste is out of this world. I do love a good sourdough.
We ordered the meatballs for appetizer, and they were perfect. Fantastic flavor, very rich and creamy cheese sauce, couldn’t be any better.
Food arrived and the steaks were grilled to perfection. The bernaise however… *sigh*. Lets talk about the Bearnaise.
In a restaurant of this class grade, how are you bringing to me a container of old barely room temperature bernaise that is so thick it won’t even spill out from the spoon. I thought I could rough it through and try it, but GROSS. It was really disgusting. Of course I sent it back, and they made a fresh batch and brought it over as soon as they could — however, my steak was slowly cooking more and more as time wasted because of course it is on a hot plate.
We ordered red velvet cake, and it had a very strong taste of a liquor in it. I wouldn’t recommend it. Not a true southern red velvet. It was very dense and served cold from the refrigerator.
All in all it wasn’t bad — the ambience was beautiful and the waiter was friendly. I’m just surprised that they don’t have better quality control in the kitchen by allowing a bearnaise to go out to a table like that.
Will likely give it another shot because I believe in 2^nd chances.

Some how my bad review didn’t make it the first time, hopefully it’ll make it this time. My boyfriend and I went there because it was something new and had great ratings but I don’t understand where the great ratings came from. The ambiance was romantic and décor was beautiful but the food was not up to par. We had the foie gras, which was good and was a nice piece for the price. The ribeye was bland with the sides of fries, mac & cheese, wild mushrooms, and pasta. Sadly out of all that the pasta was decent. They could of used red wine and butter in the wild mushrooms to give it some life and I don’t think I have ever had fries that we didn’t even finish. Overall, I would not go back. Especially spending close to $ 300 and it was a big waste
Ah! That’s why my review didn’t post. Also check out Vallone’s with two L’s