Hugo’s Hilltop Restaurant

Extremely rude and would not sit a party of four due to the lack of reservation at 6pm.

Amazing food and incredibly good service. This is a take your time culinary experience and I would highly recommend.

December 28^th 2015 – Just finished a meal for 4 that came to over $ 140.00 with tip, and the cost didn’t come close to what I think the real value of the experience was.
Visiting the in-​laws on our yearly trip to Mesquite, Nevada – the cute little resort town an hour and a half north of Las Vegas, we had dined happily at this Italian restaurant years ago when the original owners were in charge and it was delightful on every level. It was called «Bjourno’s» or something like that back then. We decided it would be fun and interesting to check out what kind of food the «new» owners were producing these days.
We were greeted at the door by a woman who looked like she might be one of the owners, but after we got our seats we never saw her again!
The first major problem tonight was the waitress. We knew her from her other waitress job up at Wolf Creek – the Mesquite golf resort– where we grab breakfast once every couple of trips and she’s okay up there, but she’s totally out of her element here. She’s a somewhat heavyset lady who is nice enough but not at all sharp and got many things wrong. We ordered 4 dinner salads with no croutons and they all came out with croutons. My wife and I are vegans and since the entrees come with both soup and salad here, we couldn’t eat the corn chowder which was creamy looking and we asked her if we could get extra salad since we weren’t getting soup. She said yes, but sure enough, 4 tiny salads appeared as if she hadn’t remembered our request in the 12 steps it took her to walk to the kitchen.
Aside from paying zero attention to details, the waitress apparently can’t be bothered spending 5 minutes of her life to learn the difference between a «vegan» and someone who is «gluten free.» It turned out that the only pasta here that doesn’t have eggs in it is their «gluten free» pasta but the waitress was completely incapable of explaining this in any coherent way. It would have sufficed to simply say: «Our gluten free pasta is the only one here that is vegan» but instead she was acting like we didn’t want gluten which is completely wrong and slightly ignorant if I may say so.
Trying to soldier on despite her disinterest and subtle condescension, we asked her if the chef could please prepare us 2 pasta dishes with whatever pasta was vegan along with mushrooms and onions and marinara sauce. She wrote it down and what came out was an extremely greasy, tasteless, unseasoned pasta mush that was radically inferior to what we make at home with store bought whole wheat pasta and Enrico’s Garlic Marinara sauce from a jar, which is amazingly DELICIOUS. This stuff was so utterly lacking in seasoning and flavor and imagination that after we added copious amounts of salt and pepper and red pepper flakes, it was still spectacularly disappointing. My mother in law was *blah* towards her eggplant parmesan and told us that the one she had at the Olive Garden recently was a whole lot better. It wasn’t anything much to look at either – a small presence on her plate that didn’t look generous or hearty or mouthwatering. The only redeeming entrée was my father in law’s linguine with white clam sauce which he said was good but I’ve known him to say the same thing about Wienerschnitzel hot dogs that my mother in law freezes for him.
Luckily we ordered 2 bottles of Oregon Pinot Noir which, though it didn’t come close to living up to its description on the wine menu – «redolent of cherries and berries and a slight smokiness» or some such wine language, kept us sufficiently anesthetized that we didn’t start throwing things around the room in disgust and frustration.
After we finished our food, we sat and sat and sat and sat and sat waiting for the waitress to come around with our check or offer us coffee or dessert. It didn’t happen so we caught the eye of the busboy who said he’d have to ask the waitress for it., More long waiting until the waitress laboriously pushed a rolling cart past us full of another table’s entrees I informed her that we were really really REALLY ready to depart. She gave us a major dose of attitude as she turned her back and displayed her blubbery hindquarters without responding or apologizing and FINALLY delivered the check which proceeded to sit on our table for ANOTHER 7 minutes with my credit card upon it. She FINALLY grabbed it, then ANOTHER 7 minutes passed before she brought it back out so we could make our exit. I was still ready to give her a 20% tip since I’m completely on board with the hard work that service personnel provide, if she would have just gotten us out of there in any half-​decent timely manner, but I decided to give her a «fuck you» tip of around 12% which is still far better than she deserved and we finally left. The in-​laws said they wouldn’t be back.
We found it bizarre that the woman who originally greeted us never found one moment to walk through and ask us how the meal was. To his credit the busboy did do this once; the waitress, never.

This is place is old and dirty. The female owner is a rude person. And the food is very SALTY. Would never eat here again.

Being in an unfamiliar town, where shops close earlier than I’m used to, we were so relieved that Hugo’s was still open when our original destination was unexpectedly closed early.
Décor really looked lackluster in the pictures, which is why we originally headed for a different destination, but we were surprised that it wasn’t AS bad as pictures suggest. Definitely a throwback to some era. Starting with service– very friendly! Portions are large & come with a very delish tomato basil soup and blah iceberg salad to start.
I tried the Chicken Picatta — my thoughts were — oily, overly creamy thick sauce and the chicken, too thin. Though portion size was large and it had a nice lemon-​caper flavor. Tried it once, I’d skip it twice.
Ravioli — 2.5 — very, very cheesy, with a blandish marinara; the basic.
The meatballs were quite delicious and the spaghetti in meat sauce was goodl; plus they were awesome to split a portion for 2 kids, including each little soup and salad, with zero complaints.
Though I know kids aren’t an exciting thing in a restaurant of a retirement area, they were very accepting and helpful to seat us with (2) 4 year olds, even if it was in the far back corner :). I’m happy to have tried something new while hungry on the hilltop at 7pm in Mesquite, if only to have found an okay little spot where the service and soup bored it up from a 2 on food to a 2.5 experience overall.

We are staying in the hotel where this restaurant is located, so we gave it a try. Advertisements every where bragging on the chef and the cuisine…
Service was terrible, with the exception of the bus boy, we had empty water glasses the entire meal. Salads were TINY with wilted lettuce. Marinara was very sweet with a strong cinnamon flavor. My husband ordered a $ 30 steak meal, the steamed vegetables were of the frozen variety and a very small portion, and the steak was mushy. The best part of the meal was the bread and vanilla ice cream our children ordered…

Gluten sensitive BEWARE!
My fiancé and I were staying at the «hotel» that Hugos is located in. (AKA: Assisted living home that never came to fruition… No. Really) We decided to stop in Mesquite for our one night stay because it was about 100 bucks cheaper than staying in Vegas on a Sat night… Anyhoo. Fiancé was hungry so we decided to scope out the menu and see if there was anything that peaked his interest. Feeling hungry we just decided to give it a try to keep life simple.
Being the Glutard of the bunch, I am always weary of Italian food restaurants. This one was no different. Something in my gut just said «Dont do it unless you want to be sick all day tomorrow» Not being overly hungry anyhow, I just opted to eat food that I had packed upstairs in our room, later.
Trying to be sweet, my fiancé happened to notice that there was an option for gluten-​free pasta on the menu for an additional $ 2 charge. So he said he was going to order it with that pasta instead so I could have a few bits later.
When his pasta dish came out I began to notice that the chicken almost appeared to have a light dusting of some kind of flour on it (this isn’t my first rodeo) — although it was really hard to say given the whole thing was literally SWIMMING in sauce. When our server came back by I asked if it was at all possible that they would coat the chicken in flour before sauteing it. She left to check with the kitchen and when she returned she looked at us and said, «yes. There is def flour in there» …Ummm, seriously guys???
At this point I’m not really sure what is worse, the fact that our server wouldn’t think to ASK if there was an actual food intolerance, or if the pasta was being ordered because of a sheer preference. Or the fact that the kitchen wouldn’t check with our (already negligent) server to make sure they wouldn’t be making someone seriously ill by adding flour to a dish that SHOULD be gf otherwise.
Either way, if you are one of those people who eats «gluten free» because Dr OZ says it’s sooo much healthier (don’t get me started), while still wolfing down the loaf of bread in front of you, then this is of no concern to you. For those of us who have a true disease and have no other choice than eat gf or suffer with gut wrenching pain, I would NOT trust this place.
Fiancé reported that food was mediocre at best and def not something I would seek out.

Just walking in was you smell old grease, inside your greeted by an old sofa and still yet the inside you smell old grease. The place is dark, the carpet is dirty. The food is bland the best I had was the baked potato. This is my second trip to Mequite, NV and both times I’ve looked for a restaurant other than one that was in a casino… my next visit will be a Restaurant within a Casino. Don’t like casino restaurants.

Enjoyed this place very much. Good food, good service and reasonable prices. We do not drink but my friend that did liked the house wine by the glass very much. Try it and you will like it!

For the money this place was surprisingly good. I had the special, a salmon and shrimp pomadoro dish. The fish was fresh and nicely seasoned. Both were a tad overdone, but for a complete dinner for $ 16.95 fresh bread, soup, salad, veg and baked potato, I thought it was a great value. The atmosphere was comfortable and quiet. All the people there were friendly and attentive.

Wow, can’t believe the terrible reviews for Hugo’s! I’ve never had a bad meal and eat there often. I recommend it to visitor’s all the time… never had anyone come back and say it was bad. Yes, it is a local favorite and if you are here during snowbird season better come early or make a reservation. Super nice people, good service and wonderful food. Give it a try and see for yourself!

My in laws picked this place for dinner. Sometimes when your in a town filled with casinos you just want to go to a normal restaurant. They really enjoyed their dishes. My steak was ok but I find it hard to be leave it was choice like the menu said. The price was right but I won’t be in a rush to return.

I’ve only eaten at Hugo’s once. It was a weeknight and not too busy. The staff was friendly and attentive. It was quite dark but seemed well furnished and clean. I can’t give them any more than one star though.
The food was way below par. They had veal piccata on special so I gave that a try. The veal was cold, overcooked and tough. The sauce (made there) was just average. I was given the frozen vegetable medely and the vegetables were still cold inside. If that was the special, I would hate to see the everyday fare. For a restaurant that’s trying to be up-​scale their house wines were poor.
Like a lot of places in Mesquite they use frozen product and microwaves. I expected a lot more from a place that calls themselves «the local’s favorite».

A for AWFUL! worst meal ever!
and whats with the rolling carts that the servers use? from beginning to end it was just bad. even the greygoose martinis were undrinkable — how do you mess up a martini? this place came highly recommended by another restaurant owner in town-​i cant tell you how dissapointed
we were. I had the veal scallopini which was an awful presentation to begin with and tasted worse than the worst chicken fried steak I have ever had. it was served with a lovely side of frozen vegatable medly, im not lying.