Trattoria Mollie

This was a really wonderful meal. I’m so glad that we came here. There were 5 of us and we ordered Crostini ai Funghi, Cannelloni di Spinaci e Ricotta, a Margharita pizza, and a chicken dish to share between 5 people. Every single plate was finished and the dessert was amazing as well. When we were leaving we met the owner/​chef Mollie, we got to tell her in person how much we enjoyed this meal. I would def go to this restaurant. Go a little early or a little late in afternoon so you get the best service! We went in Oct 2015, I know, Im really late posting a review.

We were exploring Montecito and stumbled across Trattoria Mollie’s for lunch. It was a late lunch, and the place seemed a little quiet inside, but the outside patio was full. We were quickly showed to our seats and greeted with bread/​oil. I’ve seen other reviews now that said the service was cold and off-​putting – not exactly our experience, yet I suppose it could have been friendlier. The food however was amazing.
For food: We split a Caesar salad and a Caprese salad that was delicious. I was worried about what quality the tomatoes would be on the Caprese (we are from the East Coast and tomatoes aren’t great this time of year-​Winter) and we were pleasantly surprised. The Caesar was crisp and fresh. All delicious. I had the simple Spaghetti al Pomodoro which I loved. Pasta cooked perfectly, great tomatoes and basil. Excellent. My husband had the Rigatoni all’amatriciana which he loved. Nice al dente pasta. Great bacon!
The place was cute-​ish and we fully enjoyed our lunch. Would be a regular place for us if we lived here for sure. On the way out, we were thanked by staff, including Mollie… which was a nice touch. All in all, two thumbs up.

Going down hill. Went for dinner last week. Service is weak at best of times but now seems to be sinking to new lows. The ordering process was chaotic and the delivery of the meals was haphazard. Nothing like paying top $ and having the person who took the orders ask: «Who is having the Branzino?» then slamming the plate down when you raise your hard.
restaurant is very noisy but now seems populated with tables full of young children playing noisy computer games. Again this would be ok in a moderately priced restaurant but here is madness to pay top dollar to be ignored and get a headache!
If the food had been decent I’d given them three stars but it wasn’t. The mushroom salad was all arugula with three (3) small mushrooms on top.
There are better options in Montecito.

Our visit to Trattoria Mollie combined delicious food with the absolute worst customer service experience of all time. When asked for a glass of water with no ice one member of the waitstaff returned with hot water in a drinking glass making a snide remark. When asking for bread it took four requests to three people and another snide comment about whether or not we wanted cold bread before a loaf arrived. By the time our second glass of wine arrive we were ready to call it quits but had already made the unfortunate mistake of ordering our entrees. Given this we stuck it out which in retrospect I wish we hadn’t done.
In short I would never dine at Trattoria Mollie again and would recommend that you skip it as well. They ruined what was one of the more anticipated meals of our trip to Montecito. With all of wonderful options in the area there is no need to waste your time or Money with Mollie and company.

stopped going; place is getting ore and more indifferent to its patrons. Feels like they are doing us a favor when we dine there, and not v.v.

Had a beautiful delicious Italian dinner.
Started with a tossed scallop fungi salad, my favorite pasta dish spaghetti with the famous lightly spicy meatballs. Several dessert options –tiramisu is my favorite. Great wine list.
Martina always gives the best service. Mollie welcomes us with a smile and hugs.
We highly recommend.

My wife has wanted to return to Trattoria Mollie for a few years, so I decided to let her have her say. And am I glad that she was the one who chose to return to this place again and not me.
We dined here about 5 years ago and it was a lot better than our experience the other night. First of all the place was almost deserted, with only about 3 tables occupied, last time the place was full.
I started out ordering a bottle of wine, which after about 5 minutes the waiter came back only to tell me they were out of it.
Ok, so then I started looking for another selection but keep being sidetracked as the waiters were yelling at each other in fairly loud voice across the dining room.
HELLO, can we dine in peace here, I am trying to have a nice quiet experience, but this form of communications continued on through out the evening. Wow, Mollie was in the kitchen and I am surprised she lets these guys get away with this kind of behavior.
My sense is that she is either burned out or the (Latino) waiters now own the joint. They couldn’t have been Mexican professionals, because we dine in a lot of Mexican restaurants and have never heard this kind of boisterous chatter.
I ordered the veal picatta and the wife ordered the seafood risotto. After a few minutes both arrived along with our new bottle of wine, which the waiter opened and pour our glasses.
That was the last time the waiter ever bothered to touch the wine bottle, there was the bus boy that bothered to refill our water glass the but waiter was missing in action as far as service goes for the rest of the night. Hey I have two arms so I can fill my wine glass, it’s just that they were standing around BS’ing.
My food was OK, two small pieces of veal, along with the mandatory steamed vegetables, the wife’s seafood risotto was also OK.
We decided to split a Tiramisu for dessert which came out soggy, with flavorless gloppy weak something or other. Usually the Tiramisus have bold coffee flavor or coffee liquor with some body from using Marscarpone cheese, but not this one. We each had about a spoon full and left the remainder on the plate. We were ready to order some coffees, but were never asked.
All in all, this place no longer has the energy it once had, no excitement, looks like everybody is just doing what they need to do to keep the doors open.
This was not a great going out to dine experience which one would hope for especially since their prices are moderately high.
There are way to many other places in Santa Barbara and Montecito for us to come back here again.

Some of the recent reviews seem skewed and flawed.
What I can say is this: Mollie’s consistently scores 5 stars for quality of food and quality of service. Ask for Martina who is superb and will make your experience amazing.
Faves:
Pizza: thin crust fresh flavorful and a great starter item.
Salads: the Funghi salad, warm scallop salad are two faves.
Mains: Sea Bass in herbs w veggies served piping hot in foil. Ask for «John’s Pasta» a dreamy velvety sauce w mushroom and Madeira wine cream sauce. Outrageous. Great steak and fish dishes.
Fave: filet Mignon on a bed of lentils and fresh veggies. Delish.
And finally: the spaghetti and meatballs is sublime. My favorite meatballs on the planet.
My only suggestion would be to bring your own wine. I don’t believe that Mollie’s very nice selection is stored properly. Rather hit and miss. I’d love to see her store her reads in a proper temp (57) degree wine fridge.
Other than that, Mollies is consistently great and is recommend a visit soon!

Another stellar Oprah recommendation!
Although the prices are high, the food is amazing. The best by far is the Bolognese, but I have not gone wrong with any other pasta, salad or soup order.
Love the complementary Italian cookies at the end of the meal.
The service has always been so friendly and accommodating as we are usually just barely making the lunch-​time cut off or coming in for a late dinner on our way back to LA.
Indoor and outdoor seating.

Much to do about not much…
The food was a solid 3 stars the service 3 stars
The location 3 stars, so what is the big deal here?
Oprah? Obama? This place could be great if they took Italy and its food seriously.

Love Trattoria Mollie!
This restaurant is as good as it gets if you are looking for real authentic italian food and fresh ingredients! Food and service are always consistent.
Mollie and her staff are so warm and friendly always making you feel welcome and at home.
I always have a debate on what to order here because I have so manny favorites!
Here are some.. . The Risotto Frutta di Mare, Fetuchinni al fungi, Branzinno, some times in the specials they have a spinach crab pasta that is amazing and their Pizza is a must as a starter thin, crispy and delicate sauce! The Fettuchinni Bolognese is out of this world!

Wow! And not in a good way! $ 27 for a piece of chewy chicken and a couple of pieces of broccoli! No drinks, only super expensive wine. They stuck us at a table in a way off room, no one else was there, but I guess we weren’t important enough to sit in the «main dining room». The waiters disappeared for over 30 minutes at a time. Bad food, lousy service at joke prices.

The food is Amazing, make sure you get a reservation. Cheif Mollie is so warm and makes you feel as part of her family. She came over several times to talk with us and sign her cook book and take a picture. Her safe is extremely professional and will all the food to your liking. All the food is made in house. I highly recommend visit this Resturant!!!

We arrived party of 2 around 6pm with a reservation and after some initial confusion over where to seat us, we were seated at a nice 4-​top table. Water was poured and 5 minutes passed before we were greeted by a server. It took another 10+ minutes to deliver a bottle of wine. The food experience was overall position and our main issues were with service. The attitude is very offensive from the top down.
The owner and staff were clearly playing favorites, fawning over certain regular customers and basically ignoring everyone else. We are not regulars so we basically felt unimportant. My advice to the owner would be to treat everyone with great service and not to kiss ass to just your regular customers. As the reviews on here show, service is clearly lacking and needs attention.

This place was so quaint. And we loved knowing it’s one of Oprah’s fave haunts. There are pics of the owner with Obama. Pics of her with Michael Douglas and Catherine zeta jones inside too. My favorite part was the balsamic reduction she uses on her shrimp salad. And she makes a great seafood pasta with black linguini. The waiter recommended the spaghetti and meatballs to me as a signature dish but I was not too impressed. The beef carpaccio was good too:)
The little town of Montecito itself was very cute and quaint and it was worth it to drive up from Los Angeles just for lunch. Yes, we are crazy.

My friends and I had lunch here this week while visiting Santa Barbara for a few days. I live in San Francisco and originally from Brooklyn. I’m also Italian American and passionate about Italian food. Growing up surrounded by some of the best cooks in my family gave me a unique perspective on Italian food.
Unfortunately this restaurant which came highly recommended was a huge disappointment. The food was mediocre at best and my dish of the famous turkey meatballs was way too spicy. While our waiter was very nice. The service was not great.
We waited quite a while before the waiter approached our table. The place was empty (only 3 tables) were occupied. In fact I saw the owner greeting a table just behind us. I also found the prices to be quite high for the quality of the food.
If you want to go to a restaurant to see photos of the first family and Oprah, then go. The collection of personal photographs are fascinating.
If you want good Italian food, I’m afraid to say it falls flat.

We have never been disappointed with any visit to Trattoria Mollie in Montecito. The food is always outstanding. Never fussy or over conceived– Mollie does the simple classics consistently like few others can. Some of our staples are the melt-​in-​your-​mouth carpaccio, the best meatballs bar none, amazing fruitti di mare and a creamy bolognese sauce that compliments but does not overwhelm the perfectly light pasta. Specials are always intriguing and we seem to always order too much, then find a way to finish every bite. The ricotta cheesecake will make you swear off the heavy cream cheese versions forever and always order dessert when you’re past the point of not being able to eat another bite.
This has been our go-​to place to get away from the hustle and bustle of life, the celebrate a special occasion or simply to treat ourselves to a wonderful evening. Few restaurants have ever done that for us.

I was so excited to try out the food here as Oprah said it was wonderful. Especially the meatballs. I ate half a meatball. It was bland and I didn’t realize it contained raisins yuk.
My friends pizza was nice. I liked my vegans dessert. But have no desire to return.
Service friendly and very nice.

Ordered:
1– margarita pizza (tomato, mozzarella, and basil)
Large size– enough to share 2 – 4 people.
However, it tasted like a childhood microwaveable boxed pizza from the freezer section of a grocery store. Very disappointed given the hype. Score– ¹⁄₅. Rather have digiorno pizza.
2 — mixed green salad
Average. Very small sized salad. About ²⁄₃ cup of a salad or less
Service — mediocre.
Had reservations & restaurant half full. Still waited 15 mins for table set up. Food took 30 — 40 mins to come out.
Would not come back.
Overpriced for size and service.

We drove all the way from LA to eat at Mollie’s, which we had heard excellent reviews, However we were extremely disappointed and lied too.
We had reservations at 9: 30, we arrived at 9:20, and they said that the kitchen is closed. The Server was rude to us, when asked to be seated, and told us to leave.
My father went back the next day to speak to the manager to find out why they took reservations at 9:30 yet decided to close the kitchen right when we had gotten there.
My father asked for the Manager to confront the issue, and the owner Mollie denied ownership and management” the owner is not here, the manager does not come in on Sunday’s.” Finally after 5 minutes, Mollie decided to admit that she is the owner and manager, and she said «because you decided to change the reservation from 8:30 to 9:39 we decided to take your reservation and close anyways.
Apparently, This is Oprah Winfrey’s favorite Resturant, perhaps Oprah needs to reconsider. I have never ever had such a terrible confrontation with a Resturant before.
All they needed to do was apologize for being so unprofessional and take responsibility for their lack of care. I hope they come across this review and reconsider how they treat their customers.