Antonio’s

Love this place. The best Caesar salad and tiramisu in town. The lasagne is also out of this world. My husband and I always come for New Year’s Eve dinner. They have a special menu and it’s always a low key, wonderful evening.

I prefer eating downstairs, but it’s the best pizza in Orlando. The ambiance of sitting amongst the artisan foods reminds me of a small town restaurant. Definitely a must eat at in Orlando

Amazing. Food is fresh, wait staff are friendly and will bend over backwards. The food, atmosphere, and staff are amazing.
Pizzas are fresh & hand made to order. Red sauce is authentic (carrots) & you’ll want to buy a jar or two to take home. The Eggplant Parm is simply amazing. We sometimes will design our own pizzas, but be sure to look at the nightly specials.
The spaghetti and meatballs are a favorite of mine, the lasagna is a winner too. Lots of featured items on the menu to try. There’s a huge selection of wine (add $ 5 corking fee), you can take home what you don’t drink. :)

Antonio’s is a place to go if you value service, fresh food and class. My family and I enjoy ourselves every time we come here. We try to avoid ordering the same dishes so we can share our food with each other. We are particularly happy with the seafood dishes which are expertly prepared. They treat us like VIPs from the moment we arrive until we are walking out the door. This is some of the best Italian food in Central Florida. If you have time, stop downstairs in their casual restaurant and market area and explore the variety of food available for take home.

Food was very tasty, except dessert that was on the fixed price menu– unremarkable. Standouts were the white bean soup and artichoke appetizer.
Atmosphere and service were just okay
I like downstairs much better
The upstairs could end up like Barney’s

Until last night I had only been to this restaurant once 23 years ago. My sister had a friend in town who wanted an Italian dinner and because it was nearby we took her to Antonio’s. On Friday I went online and tried to find their dinner menu. I could only find the summer menu and called to ask where I could find the main one. The girl who answered the phone offered to look online but I could tell she wasn’t much interested in helping so I said I would find it. She seemed relieved and said «ok.» I ended up getting it from another website. Today I was able to find it easily and it looks like the website format changed so not sure what the issue was.
My sister and her friend ordered off the summer menu which was not appealing to me. It was a good offer in that for $ 26 you could get an appetizer, entrée and dessert. My sister ordered the soup of the day (white beans and ham), pappardelle and short ribs and poached pears (as suggested by the waiter when asked). The soup was absolutely delicious. My sister enjoyed the entrée (good portions) and the dessert was a small portion and was not very impressive looking or to taste.
Our friend ordered the stuffed mushrooms, pollo milanese, and strawberry cheesecake parfait. She enjoyed them all. The entrée was a huge portion. We definitely didn’t leave hunger.
I asked the waiter what appetizer could we not miss and in this suggestion he got it right — the stuffed artichokes. When he delivered them I thought they were chicken thighs. That’s exactly what it looked like because they were long stemmed artichokes stuffed with goat cheese but then made to look fried as it came with crispy prosciutto. Very unique and delicious. I also ordered the beef tenderloin carpaccio. The arugula it came with was delicious but the carpaccio was SO thin it was hard to take off the plate and by the time you tried to eat it there was nothing left. No substance.
I ordered the pappardelle with salmon floating with peas, brandy and mascarpone. This was really nice and a generous portion. The desserts were not inspiring to me so I skipped. I was quite full anyways.
The wine we ordered was nice.
If we left the review here I would have given Antonio’s a 4. But to me a big part of the experience is service. This is where the rating dropped easily by a point. We were immediately greeted when we walked in with good humor and taken right to our seat. Then our waiter came. In fact at first I wasn’t sure who the waiter was as he never really welcomed us or gave us his name (until I asked — Juan). I didn’t realize until I left and thought about my sister’s comment that this place was «old school» when I said something about this service. All the servers were older men which don’t matter to me as long as I have good service. However, I think this is where the issue comes in. I had a sense that these servers had been there a long time and that they are «resting» on the reputation of Antonio’s and were not properly trained to provide good service. Even though Juan responded to all my requests I almost felt like I was bothering him. He also kept coming up behind my sister in the booth and asking questions. It was awkward for her to have someone behind her providing service. I finally think at one point I motioned for him to come over to the side of the table so we could carry out a proper conversation. I would have maybe expected that at TGIF from a 23 year old server — not at Antonio’s. And you could tell from the looks of the other servers that they didn’t look particularly happy or customer focused. They certainly did not care about adding to the dining experience.
The only highlight aside from when we were greeted in terms of service was at the very end when Alan was clearing off our table. Now most of the time during service he would reach and not say excuse me or say anything but at the end he joined into the conversation when he heard something that intrigued him. He was a very nice way to end the evening.
Overall, I would say I would love to go back but service is so important to me that I would rather take my experience somewhere else and try something new. It is a shame because this place has the potential to easily be 5 stars. Oh and one last thing that reflected the unprofessionalism of this place. One guy was at our table at the beginning doing what I don’t know and my sister had mentioned we had thought about going to Enzo’s instead last night and his attitude was so despicable and unprofessional it was disappointing. He could have made one nice comment about the «competition» and then made a fun joke that our experience would be better at Antonio’s. I will say that I will never ever forget one of my dinners’s at Enzo’s when that lovely man was still with us — he came over to our table for no reason and was so charming and delightful it made for a night I will never forget. Unlike my experience at Antonio’s last night.