Umberto’s Clam House

We’re native New Yorkers and figured we would go in for lunch. Calling us VIP’s. More like VeryInnocentPatrons. I had fried clams that were chewy and gummy. My friend had clams with pasta. The waiter didn’t understand what was ordered and the clams came in white sauce rather than red. Very few Italians running Umberto’s. Seems strange for such an iconic spot. A shade of its former past. Don’t bother. The whole area has become so commercial. I remember the good old days and this wasn’t it.

This place is FANTASTIC!!! I’ve been going here since I’m a baby and have never been disappointed once. This is my family’s favorite spot to hit when we are in the city. GET THE BAKED CLAMS they are amazing and you can’t get them this good anywhere else. Also, linguini with white clam sauce is delicious. The staff is wonderful and the owner is a pleasure to deal with! really would recommend this place to anyone.

Really yummy food and a free glass of wine with entrée! Doesn’t sound like it could get any better for a Little Italy restaurant — but it does if Omar is your waiter! He was entertaining, fun, and attentive. Food was delicious — get their vodka sauce. And ignore the bad reviews that are complaining about getting a free glass of wine… That just doesn’t make sense.

This is the best damn spaghetti bolognese I have ever had. Free glass of wine and authentic experience.

I was leary, Was not my first choice… The personality of the guy out front and the offer of A FREE GLASS OF wine was the ticket! I am hard to please, love to cook myself and considered very good!
The Veal, Egg Plant, Shrimp, Alfredo, Cesar Salad were perfect.
Eat here you will not be sorry.

This place is not that bad as Unilocal reviews wanna make you think. The restaurant is clean, staff is nice, the guy screaming on the street, yeah he is a little bit too much but — it’s LITTLE ITALY, COME ON, the competition is so high that they have to do something outstanding to attract customers to their place. It’s a tough job to stay outside all day and call people to come in. But as I said its LITTLE ITALY you have to deal with it.
5 star for service — the waitstaff was very nice.
3 for food — my mozzarella caprese salad wasn’t very tasty, as well as mushroom appetizer.
But I really liked chocolate mousse cake and Canoli !
Oh yeah, and we had a groupon each person gets a glass of wine, an appetizer, a main course and a dessert — pretty good deal !!

Excellent lobster ravioli. Staff was attentive. Good mom and pop type atmosphere. Good choice in the Little Italy area with lots of good choices

Tommy on the street coaxed us into «his» restaurant by offering free wine with dinner. He was a bit aggressive, but we were hungry. So we stayed, then ordered appetizers and several entrees.
We thought the wine would be complimentary during our dinner. We misunderstood. Only the first glass was free. Tommy should have simply clarified with a friendly explanation. Instead, he chose to be confrontational, and made a scene by embarrassing us in front of other customers by ranting about how some customers just want something for nothing. We lost our appetite, but paid for the items delivered, and left. He again harassed us on our way out. When my friend said she would leave a bad review, he replied, «that’s okay, I have plenty of bad reviews.» Now I know why. Avoid this place like the plague.

Fantastic food and a great atmosphere for a fun, relaxing dinner. Nice people, will go there again!

Stumbled upon this place by accident and was pleasantly surprised by their food. The baked clams were absolutely delicious and I would definitely go back for another round or two. I ordered the Pollo Parmigiana off the lunch menu and the meal was perfect, the cheese was soft and melted and the tomato sauce was amazing. No complaints here.

This place has average food and price is a bit high, about $ 30 for a plate of pasta and red sauce. A guy stands outside and keeps saying he is Italian and he will give you free wine. I think he is trying to convince people he is from Italy, his English is close to perfect with a new yorker accent. By the way the Wine is only 1 free glass per person and it is a small glass. Don’t get fooled.

As everyone says the guy outside offers free wine/​sangria complimentary on the house. What everyone keeps complaining about is that he was a bit pushy and rude. He is trying to run a business. My friend and I also looked across the street at the restaurant on the corner and he mentioned to us that he saw us reading their menu as well… But the guy was very friendly and sang in the restaurant and what not and was very pleasant. I think that he is pushy because he truly cares about his restaurant. As far as service, the waiter could have been a little more attentive which is why I gave it one less star, but otherwise the homemade pasta is delicious and the friend calamari was exceptional as well. Just because how funny and nice the guy was outside I would come back again.

Some guy on the street offered us free wine if we went and had a meal there, after declining and walking across the street he proceeded to follow us and accuse us of discrimination for not looking at his menu. This sort of harassment has no place in the food service or hospitality industry. Now I can promise you that I will never step foot in your restaurant and would encourage others to follow suit. Get your manners down guys…
Less than one star without even having a bite.

Rob M. is spot on. I feel like I should cut and paste his review and use it here.
A slick dude outside convinces my party of three to come in for fabulous Italian food with complementary wine. The three of us are hungry, on Mulberry Street, and it is 1206 PM. I figure it will be fine.
I was in the mood for mussels marinara which was featured on the lunch special. What arrives are overcooked mussels (a tad chewy) and severely al dente pasta (a tad too chewy) with marinara sauce which was canned. I ate about ¹⁄₃ of my food and went elsewhere. My lunch partners had salads and clams. In both cases their meals were ordinary.
Apparently the famous Umberto’s has moved to this new locale on Mulberry Street. The lighting was f — ked up, the décor kind of Salvation Army (e.g., French oil painting damaged?).
I have fond memories of the original Umberto’s. What I experienced today was a really bad dream.

Everything bad about little Italy…
It starts with the slick dude outside promising free drink and VIP tables. Btw… everyone gets the VIP table. Oh and this was the best part of the meal.
The food. Good lord the food. The bruschetta was bland tomatoes on stale bread. Even the free sangria glass couldn’t wash it down.
The fried mozzarella was like eating unsalted plastic and the tomato sauce would have made Chef Boyardee weep.
The main dishes which not one person at the table finished, were nightmares. The red sauce was out of a can and burnt. The Alfredo wasn’t even good enough to beat Kraft Mac n Cheese. The meatballs were made of rubber. No wait, that’s an insult to rubber.
Couldn’t let anyone eat it after the first fork. I told them to leave and I’ll take care of the laughable check. We went up the road to Gelso and Grand to salvage what was left of our taste buds.
Awful place. Just awful. Avoid it.

Too bad for the next guy.
Walked in, sat at the bar to eat and drink some wine on mulberry. Well, through arugula salad came, was soaked with dressing. First bite was like chewing a sand castle, the greens appeared fresh but not washed. It was so bad I could not finish, paid left.

We went to this place on a groupon… I heard they used to have the corner «prime spot» and moved a bit down the street. While the food is still unreal, the place is a little sketchy, maybe since they moved… I don’t know what happened to this area in the last 5 – 8 years but you have restaurants where the managers (at least I think they’re some sort of front house management) are haggling people to eat at their restaurant. I’ve never seen such a thing… Truly disturbing. «Come on in, delicious food! I’ll provide free wine to everyone!» This includes umberto’s wacky front house guy doing the same thing… And we aren’t talking once in awhile, literally NON-​STOP for the entire 1.5 hours we were eating… It is quite annoying and a bit pathetic. If you sit outside, you’re in for it… «STEP RIGHT UP! FRESH GNOCCI!» Please-​just-​stop.
Anyway, do pickup… food is fantastic… atmosphere; uh… no. I wouldn’t go back…

Came here on a groupon one random night. The area is Little Italy and if your familiar with this area, you would know that there are a bunch of restaurants, bars and dessert eateries here, seemingly endless. On our way to Umberto’s, the weather was light and breezy. People were dining outside and there was a lot of foot traffic from tourists in the area. As we reached the clam house, there is an annoying, 2-​bit hustler who apparently doubles As the «manager», standing outside trying to entice people into the restaurant. Offering them free sangria and dessert. What a poor excuse for trying to get ppl to dine at your restaurant.
As we entered, we sat outside, which later I regretted. We wanted to have a nice romantic dinner but all we heard was the barking and mad ravings of the «manager» trying to snatch ppl of the street. Notice how I have yet to talk abt the food…
For all the minuses of the idiot manager who clearly failed an online marketing course, the food was not too shabby. We had the seafood sampler platter to start with mussels, clams and calamari. Followed by fish and pasta entrees which were also good and seasoned well. But all of the taste of the food was again drowned out by… U guessed, the buzzing of «the idiot manager». Someone please fire that fool. ASAP!!! What a wast of night, good dinner and $$$. I, Jack D. and all of my constituents, Solemnly vow never to return!

Never go here. If I could put negative stars it would be in the minus 10 range
Waiter was rude because we were grouponers. Artichokes out of season??? That’s some BS. Only select fish and had to check twice to see if he had certain ones. Good thing is that he noticed my sangria getting low every two minutes probably because of the disgusted look on my girlfriends face. At the end of telling them the food was inedible the waiter came over and said“what do you want me to do?“
SAVE YOURSELF AND NEVER GO HERE

Liked other reviews, the wait time was horrible. We were hungry and wanted some raw clams and oysters and passed by this place which called themselves a «clam house,» so we decided to give it a try. But if you are actually hungry, stay away, unless you’re willing to wait for your food. We were seated really quickly considering it was pretty empty inside anyway. But from the time we ordered our food and the time it came, I think we waited a good 45 minutes just for the first dish to come. Which really was unjustified because all we ordered was a pasta, burger and the Cold Fishermans Platter which was just raw lobster, clams, oysters, shrimps, calamari, mussels & scungilli.
After a good 15 minutes after we ordered, the waiter came back out and told us there was no lobster for the fishermans platter and would we like to replace the lobster with something else, we just said anything would be okay. What I don’t get is why it would take so long for them to realize they couldn’t make my order. Even after that we waited another good almost ½ hour for the platter to come out, mind you all it was was raw clams, raw oysters, etc. It was basically something you threw on a plate on top of a bed of lettuce so I don’t understand how that took 45 minutes to come. The calamari had no flavor and everything came with just garlic and oil. About 10 minutes after, the pasta and burger finally came.
The taste in general was just okay. Nothing special and nothing good enough to make me come back. Everything was overly priced but that wouldn’t be a problem if it actually tasted good. Our bill came out to almost $ 90 after tips just for those 3 items I just mentioned. The only reason I’m giving this review 3 stars is because I feel like the service was nice. People were friendly and attentive. Even though the food took forever, the waiter constantly came by to refill water when he saw it was empty which was nice. My phone also died and I didn’t have a wall charger, but the person serving us was nice enough to help me charge my phone by plugging it into the POS system for the register.
All in all, not bad but nothing special. Room for so much more improvement in every field — taste wise, wait time wise, price wise.