Tuscany

Not really a review but more advisory: Tuscany has closed. At the same location is now a restaurant called «Bacon.» Unsure if same owners or not but «Bacon» is open.

Fantastic food, service and great place to grab a bite downtown for a quick lunch. Definitely recommend this joint!

We had two excellent, polite waiters! Great Prices… They even have gluten spinach free pasta.
2 meals (build your owns)
2 salads
1 beer
1 pellegrino
all for under $ 35.00
Will be back just for dessert someday.

Quick salad for lunch… Awesome and fresh. Cant wait now to come for dinner EVERYTHING smells amazing. Small quaint looks like it could become a regular spot

Chicken pesto panini was really good. Salad was fresh. Kids plate came with a lot of food. Service was good, just a little slow. Maybe because it’s a Sunday & not very busy. We were limited on time too. Overall, good food & good value.

When we are in the mood for Italian, but want more than just the usual pizza/​pasta place, we come to Tuscany Grill. Love that you can match a pasta with a sauce, and a favorite is the gnocchi with creamy marinara. The creamy marinara is delicious on any pasta. Also enjoy linguini with pesto. The Caesar salad is delicious, as well as the paninis and the pizzas. The lamb, which is a special, is a must have!
The service is especially friendly and attentive. Really a great spot for lunch and dinner. Tuscany will not disappoint!

I picked Tuscany Grill initially because of the overall 4 Star rating it received from other Unilocalers. And this proved to be a good choice… everything was fantastic from start to finish.
Bread was the first thing to arrive on our table along with ice water. The bread was homemade and accompanied with a ramekin of butter which was soft enough not to tear the tender bread… this was enjoyable, but we didn’t want to eat too much of that because dinner was on its way!
We started with the Cream of Mushroom Soup, which was nothing short of addicting… robust mushroom flavor nestled in a creamy broth that started from a deep brown roux… couldn’t get enough of it.
For entrees we had the Lasagne and the Eggplant Parm. Both items arrived piping hot and were blanketed in mozzarella cheesy goodness! The lasagne featured mushrooms and Italian sausage in lieu of plain ol’ hamburger… all were layered with a tasty tomato sauce in between sheets of pasta. The Eggplant Parm consisted of thick slices of tender eggplant that had been breaded and fried, then layered with the cheese and a very rich and flavorful tomato sauce. The portions were large… we couldn’t finish, so I’m happy to say that I have leftover for another meal!
I had an iced tea to accompany my meal and it tasted freshly made and was good and cold.
So… even though we were quite full from the soup and our entrees, we still had to try some dessert. We ordered the bread pudding, which was incredibly moist and studded with plump raisins and topped with a few dollops of whipped cream. The pudding was not overly sweet and it was topped with a buttery sauce which provided enough sweetness to make this dish special. And even though we split dessert, we couldn’t finish that either! So… now I have dessert for home too… yay me!
I had to have a Cappuccino to accompany my dessert and that was a perfect cup of fresh brewed coffee topped with a fresh, frothy foam and dusted with a little cocoa and cinnamon.
Now, what is the other aspect that gives this review 5 Stars? Service! And right from the get-​go, we were attended to by Jesus, who was warm, friendly, engaging and super attentive to our needs! He immediately made us glad that we had chosen Tuscany Grill for dinner. He knew the menu well and offered his suggestions as well as answered all of our questions. And since we were so raving about the soup, he even brought over a little taste of a Shrimp Bisque that the chef was working on! Marvelous!!!
Top this all off with some great Italian music and you have a new go-​to place!
So… will we go there again? Most definitely! Thank you Tuscany Grill for a delicious and fun-​filled evening!

Had lunch here today had chicken parm was kinda watery and tasteless. Pasta was over cooked service was great sat out side on the patio nice place not sure about the food.

Very cute place! Wonderful service. The chicken beet salad was scrumptious! The pizza however was really bad. The crust and sauce had no flavor.

I’m definitely a fan of this place. It’s a small, intimate restaurant that you might easily pass when you’re driving down Grant, but if you happen to pass by it or you find it here on Unilocal,give it a try.
As soon as we walked into the door, we were greeted by a wonderful waitress named Debbie, I believe. She was very easy to talk to, made great suggestions, gave us her honest opinion, and took the best care of us.
The food was delicious. My boyfriend and I ordered the rib eye steak. The only thing that was kind of a bummer was that they cooked our steaks a little more than we each liked. He likes his rare and he got medium rare. I like mine medium rare and I got medium. But it wasn’t enough to stop us from enjoying them. The mushroom sauce that mine came with gave my steak more flavor that I absolutely loved. My boyfriend’s came with some kind of lemon sauce that gave it a totally different, but equally as delicious flavor. The veggies were perfect and nicely seasoned, and the mashed potatoes were great.
We had ordered the calamari fritti as an appetizer and they seemed a little overdone, but not by much. They were still edible and pretty good.
Pricing is appropriate. I would definitely come back here for dinner again. No need to wait for a special occasion or anything. This place is a great spot to eat at just because.

We have eaten here 3 or 4 times and each time is very good. The service is great, the food is great, the prices are great. We have not had a bad meal ever and will continue to support them.

Tuscany is Novato’s undiscovered GEM! The food is excellent! Both times we’ve been there it has been empty, that almost scared us away the first time, but boy am I glad we gave it a chance. It is Wonderful!

I’ve eaten at Tuscany Grill several times, and while having a couple decent dishes, overall the restaurant strikes me as very average. Nothing I’ve ever tried really stands out. Most of the dishes I have tried there are bland in flavor, and in some cases there are quality issues which I will expand on. The service ranges from mediocre to good, depending on which waiter is working.
Here are the dishes /​sides /​desserts I’ve tried and my opinion on them:
Sole A La Limone — This is my favorite entrée they offer. It is slightly above average, with a fairly good sauce. However, the sides are a disappointment. The pasta side is okay, but extremely small in size. The bigger problem is the vegetables. They use the cheapest kind of vegetables possible, such as broccoli and carrots. While I understand they are probably trying to keep costs down, it would be nice to have an option to upgrade to higher end sides like grilled asparagus.
Chicken Marsala — Overall, not bad; however, not good either — pretty average. The big issue here is the overpowering sweetness of the Marsala. To me a balanced Marsala sauce has components of many taste flavors. However, this sauce is unbalanced toward excessive sweetness.
NY Steak — I’ve tried their NY steak a couple times and in both cases it is fatty and chewy. The steaks they use are on the lower quality side. I have no problem if the restaurant charges more and serves better quality steaks, but it seems like cost savings is more important to the restaurant than quality.
Minestrone Soup — Their soup is actually pretty good. The broth has a good flavor and the vegetables and pasta in the soup taste decent.
Caesar Salad — Some quality issues with the lettuce, such as wilted leaves that look like they are starting to go bad. The Caesar dressing they use is low on flavor, and tastes like it came out of a jar. Overall, the Caesar salad is at best mediocre.
Cheese pizza — overall, the sauce and cheese are relatively decent. The bread they use for the crust on the other hand is terrible. The «crust» is actually a very chewy and soft bread, rather than normal pizza dough. This completely changes the texture of the pizza. There is no firmness or crispiness in the bread; rather, it tastes like having pizza made on white bread. In this case, the «crust» alone ruins what otherwise may have been a decent pizza (had it been made with regular pizza dough).
Wine List — The wine list is extremely bad. Just about every wine I’ve tried there is unbalanced, and obviously cheap. The only exception being a single cabernet sauvignon which was average. Most are supermarket grade «value» wines marked up considerably. Not only are the wines lower quality offerings, but the varietal offerings are extremely limited. Last time I went, they didn’t even offer a pinot noir which practically every good Italian restaurant has in supply. I feel they really need to invest in higher quality wines, and also put staple varietals like Pinot Noir on the wine list.
Deserts: Tiramisu
The tiramisu Tuscany sells is the worst I have ever had at a restaurant. It is extremely dry, very cakey, and low in flavor. It tastes exactly like a Safeway made tiramisu. A good tiramisu should be soaked in rum /​espresso so the lady fingers pick up more flavors and some moisture. However, Tuscany’s Tiramisu is just a dry cake with cream on top.
Overall, as a package, I consider Tuscany Grill average. The food ranges from terrible (tiramisu) to decent (Sole Limone), but most of the dishes are in the mediocre to average range. I really like their location in downtown Novato, and I keep going back because they are conveniently located. However, there are better Italian options in Novato and I hope they work on improving their quality and menus to better compete with the competition.

Sub-​par at best. My husband took some family and friends here for dinner. We chose the location because of the Unilocal reviews, as we were not familiar with the area. Wait staff was friendly. The starter soup and salad was tasty. My husband ordered the fettachini alfredo dish and enjoyed it. I ordered the linguine with wine garlic sauce. I opted to pay more to add chicken breast, which ended up being a big mistake. The chicken was dry and flavorless. The dish would have been better without the chicken. I loved the garlic sauce, but the chicken made the dish taste terrible. At the end of the meal, we opted to get dessert. I got the crème brule and do not recommend it. The consistency was… off, and the custard is too bland. I was very underwhelmed by my food. For five people, we payed a bit over $ 100. I will not be coming back in the future.

Delicious American breakfast! Gravy, country potatoes, wonderful chicken fried steak, well-​prepared skillets. Even good biscuits, which is hard to come by in these parts. Haven’t had the waffles, pancakes, or omelettes; but, judging by the quality of what I’ve had, it’s everything you’d want in American breakfast. Nothing Italian about it, as far as I can tell – a good thing.
At the quiet end of downtown, with a little outside seating as well. Attentive and friendly waitstaff. Clean and affordably priced «weekend» breakfast for Novato.
Haven’t had the Italian yet… so the rating is for Breakfast.

Yea! They are back in business. It was a happy day when I saw the grand opening sign last week. We had dinner there. The next day and it was as good as we remembered. I had the gnocchi with cheese sauce. One of the better gnocchi in Marin maybe even the best. It’s one of my favorites, but hard to find a good dish of it in Marin. Yes, they still had great service. They brought the food a little fast behind the salad, but otherwise, very attentive and made sure we were taken care of for the entire meal.
Can’t wait to go back for a different dish.

We ate lunch there yesterday and it was as good if not better when we ate there before it closed. We are glad it reopened. Our server Francisco was great.

This is a great place for lunch in Novato. The panini’s here are amazing and I recommend either the salmon panini or the sausage.
Service is always great here

We have gone here a few times with my wife and they are always very courteous when we go in for lunch or dinner. We very much enjoy there various pasta dishes from the chicken parmigiana (which I recommend) to the meatball sandwich durning lunch! The atmosphere is quite so it’s a great place to go for a nice dinner. They always treat us very well and we will continue our patronage!

Had a rare date night with my wife last night, and we wanted Italian so thought we’d try this place. We had been there for brunch a while back and although my burger was great, it wasn’t really Italian.
Our server was amazing. After listening to what we like she suggested we might want to split an entrée since they were quite generous. She was right. We each had soup, split a caprese salad and tried the Chicken Parmesan which let us get an idea of the tomato sauce. Well, it was all great! More than enough for the two of us. And with a number of reasonably priced wines on the menu as well we split a bottle and came home with a tab of around $ 60!
The special last night was a tri-​tip and lobster plate — we didn’t order it but the folks at the next table chowed down like it was ambrosia. We’ll have to go back when they have THAT on the menu again. I suspect we’ll be back sooner than that though