Natalie’s

Love Natalie’s. We have been here countless times and it was always excellent.

Furious at the lack of consideration afforded me by Natalie’s of Ridgewood. I have been trying to inquire about a reservation for a luncheon in April 2016 for three weeks and just NOW was told that the owner didn’t want to call me backed because she felt badly that the date I needed was already booked. What!!! I was more than willing to give this place my business even after having such a hard time getting a hold of anyone but this treatment is absurd and unprofessional.

Been enjoying this restaurant for many years with my family. They have the best focaccia bread. Their pasta specials are an amazing value.

Went to Natalie’s on Oct. 16^th with some friends we see a few times a year. Split the bill with two credit cards. Next day we both received a call from credit card company of fraudulent charges. My card had a fraudulent charge one hour after we left restaurant and then again the next morning. The other couple also had a fraudulent charge. Notified restaurant with no saisfaction whatsoever. Disappointed with Frank and Natalie’s restaurant. This cancellation of credit card along with time to protect my credit rating has been time consuming and disturbing. When going back to the restaurant to confront owner, Frank tried to make us feel that it was not them, but something we did. This was a crime that was committed, and just blown off by owner.

For a Friday night there was one waitress. She was hardworking and I felt bad for being the only one there. This place was horrible. No one came to refill our water, The wedge salad tastes like bottled ranch instead of blue cheese. The pecan crusted chicken tasted like I was chewing leather. Don’t think I’ll ever give this place another try.

Excellent! Delicious! Reservations recommended on Saturday night! Place gets busy! Byob … Great staff ! Great menu !

My husband and I came here on a Sunday (early evening) and sat outside. We were seated and served immediately. Our experience was okay, but we’ve had better Italian elsewhere.
We had no problem with the service– our server was kind of frazzled, but made sure we had everything we needed quickly. Really, I think the food could have been better. We had rice balls as an appetizer, chicken parm for me and pesto asparagus ravioli for my husband. The rice balls were recommended by our server, and they were pretty good. The raviolis were pretty bad – they must have been frozen, and were really bland in general. I realize chicken parm is a pretty basic meal but it wasn’t great, I definitely prefer the version at Il Gemeli’s in Hackensack. I think we spent about $ 60– it is BYOB.
To sum it up, probably could have had the same meal at Olive Garden– there was no homemade touch, but the outdoor seating is nice.

I’ve been planning on taking out one of my friends for lunch/​dinner for a few weeks now. Given the fact that she has a very demanding job, she told me that she was only free Thursday (which happened to be the very next day). Since I knew I probably only had one chance to impress this girl, I thought it would be a good idea to take her to Natalie’s since her name is Natalie too. Despite the fact that this restaurant was a little far from where we live, I decided to take a leap of faith and just go.
It was definitely worth the drive! The food was unbelievable. She got the Natalie Beet Salad and I got the Pasta Natalie (yes, we purposely picked entrée names with the word Natalie in them). I must say, I didn’t know what heaven tasted like until I tried this pasta — best pasta I’ve had in a long time! The Beet Salad was delicious too. We loved our app as well. We had fried calamari and it was so delicious. Overall, Natalie and I loved the food and atmosphere!

Had a great meal! The food was outrageously delicious! Everything came to our table piping hot. I had a lobster pot pie with vegetables that was brimming with large succulent pieces of lobster cooked to perfection! I heard other tables exclaiming about their food as well. I can’t wait to go back. This is the perfect time of the year to go into Ridgewood. Everyone seems to be out of town so parking which is usually horrible was a breeze and getting a table at all of the restaurants is no problem. Try Natalie’s if you haven’t already.

Just came out from a bridal shower. Food was decent. But really, they were sadly understaffed for the event and the number of people attending. It was a small room with a lot of people and two wait staff. The owner left the premises. People are scrambling after time to get quarters for parking and the restaurant has zero change. In a town where meters rule and parties go on longer than the average dinner, it would have been very nice to have had quarters available for sale so people could not worry about tickets. Details lack.
Eh. Won’t be running back there.

Family run with amazing food!
The stuffed artichoke and French onion soup are the best! As far as entrees, you can’t go wrong with the rigatoni in meat sauce.

My fiancé and I dined here for dinner a couple weeks ago. As fairly new Ridgewood residents, we had been wanting to try Natalie’s for sometime now. My fiancé ordered the penne with meatballs which he enjoyed. I ordered their seafood pasta. I was starving so it would have been easy to impress me but it was oily and the seafood tasted a bit off. Additionally, it cost $ 40 for this disappointing entrée. I still wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. But as soon as I got home, I felt sick and spent the rest of the night in and out of the bathroom. I would highly recommend avoiding ordering any seafood at this restaurant. As for my fiancé and I, we will not be returning to Natalie’s. They ought to inspect the integrity and safety of their seafood.
My fiancé tried contacting Natalie’s both by phone and email but no response.
This is my first post ever. I’ve never felt compelled to do so before. This was by far the worst restaurant experience.

Never have done this before, but need to vent!!!
As far as I can recall this place has been around for over 20 years, and it is time for them to hang it up. Should have gotten up and realized we were in for it after waiting 25 minutes for salad and apps. As if that wasn’t enough we then proceeded to wait 45 minutes for sub par main dishes. Not once did the waitress or the woman in charge check in on us to let us know the status, perhaps it’s normal for the entire dining room to not have food on their table!
Live and learn, and I will chalk it up as a bad experience. But I warn you if you dare to dine at this establishment stick your hands up high in the air, like it’s a stick up!

Well let’s just say that the food is good if you can muster up the patience to wait for it! Practically had to beg for more water, glad it was a BYO so then that way we had something to drink. Great food. Just lousy service. Sorry but was here during the week and was like being at a different restaurant

This place is not inexpensive, but it’s very good. The restaurant isn’t very large so it’s not the best place for an event unless you had a party of 10. For a few friends though, this place is great for splitting various dishes. They make excellent lobster ravioli with a rich crab meat sauce. From my reviews of other places you can see this is something I like to order if I can, and their salads are very fresh. They also make an interesting potato salad which is a good snack to split. I don’t usually like potato salad because of all the mayonnaise but if it’s on these potatoes, I can’t even tell. It’s filled with flavor unlike anything else I’ve had.

I dined at this restaurant yesterday for the first (and last) time. I understand that it was a Monday and it was raining out but when I arrived, there was no one there and the only waiter in the restaurant was sitting in the back playing with spoons. That should’ve been my first hint to leave; but against my better judgement, I gave it a chance. My business guest and I were the only ones at the restaurant the entire time.
Let’s start with the service. Again, we were the only ones there so the service should have been exceptional, instead it was as weak as they come — would hate to see what it would be like if it was busy. The waiter did not know the menu and gave incorrect information to my business guest. He served our food and never came back to check to see how it was or if anything further was needed (sat in the back and talked to the kitchen and some person that kept coming in and out of the restaurant). At one point, the music was louder than it should have been with only us in the restaurant. I called the waiter over and asked to have it lowered and he said he could not because it was on a timer and could only be turned on or shut off (ridiculous). I asked him if it could then be turned off and again he said he couldn’t because it was also connected to the electricity of the kitchen and the lights would go off (are you kidding me???). He said that the music would go off in a half hour by itself. The waiter appeared to be annoyed that we were in there and he had to work.
Let’s go to the food. I ordered the Shrimp Puttanesca. I would have been better off eating it from a jar (and chances are I was). At least then my expectations would have been low. I asked to have the pasta changed from linguine to penne just to prevent sloppiness with my business guest but that was forgotten and I got the linguine. The shrimp tasted like they were previously frozen (had a rubbery and hard texture), the sauce tasted reheated and like there was raw tomato paste in it, the olives were out of a can rather than the Kalamata olives that were listed in the ingredients and the capers tasted like they were never drained and were poured into the sauce along with the brine. Not a good dish but the waiter never came around so I could not tell him. My business partner had salmon that looked like it had been out in the sun before cooked — did not have that fresh pink look and was so overcooked. When the waiter finally came over to see if we were done, he saw that plates were still full and asked if there was something wrong. I explained the issues and he said that no one has ever complained but that he would tell the chef. I showed him one of the canned olives and asked if this was a Kalamata olive and he said that he didn’t know what a Kalamata olive looked like. There was no offer of any type of apology at all. I wasn’t looking for the meal to be taken off the check (again I was with a business guest) but the offer of something, anything would have least showed that they cared about their customers.
What a poor experience on all accounts.

My husband and I tried out this place last night. It was Sunday, which was their pasta special night– but they still have the regular menu as well. It was not packed, but there were a decent amount of people there for a Sunday night.
There was one waitress and one assistant/​bus gal from what I could tell. They were both lovely and on their game. Other diners seemed to be enjoying their service and evening as well. Nice atmosphere, clean, cozy.
The food was pretty good. Bread was nice and warm. I ordered the Broad Street Pasta special. It came with a salad and dessert for $ 14.95, which is a pretty great deal. The house salad was surprisingly fresh and large (since most places usually cheap out on an included salad), with crisp slices of tomatoes and freshly sliced parm cheese, and properly dressed in what I think was a balsamic vinagrette. The pasta dish arrived and looked appetizing, and was a good size. It would have been better with a bit more flavor, as it was a bit bland– but I did like the homemade chicken sausage.
My husband had the chix parm, which was nicely done and had good flavor. Later on, i had the carrot cake, which was actually quite yummy. Overall, a solid experience.

Went Saturday with friends for dinner. Owners Frank and Natalie were extremely nice. Had a 7:30pm reservation and we were seated right away, which we like. I had to give only 3 stars because the amount of time we had to wait for our main course was ridiculous. Over an hour is too long, even for fresh made food. The food was very good though, as well as our desserts. Give it a try… I’m sure that doesn’t happen all the time.

We’ve held off trying Natalie’s because of the mixed reviews, but decided to give it go yesterday with the family in tow. Ridgewood is missing a casual family sit-​down Italian place (Bottega is too small, Renato’s and BrooklynP are basically pizza joints, and La Lanterna is too upscale for kids — and just ok to boot), so we were hoping Natalie’s could fill the void for family night
Sunday is pasta night, and they have a nice selection of pastas for $ 15 which is why we went. Apparently, we weren’t alone, because the place was fairly crowded; on most nights when I walk by from the train, it’s pretty dead. I think they had two servers and one or two runners for the entire place, so while the servers were competent, they had no shot at keeping up. It took us 20 minutes to get a bottle of wine opened, and probably 45 minutes for appetizers and the kids food to arrive. Entrees came over 90 minutes in, which is rough if you have little ones. Thank god the bread on the table was hot and tasty and kept us from knawing on the table cloth to stay alert. Our waitress was also kind enough to give our kids cupcakes, which definitely went a long way to maintaining our table’s waning sanity.
In good news, the food, when it finally arrived, was actually excellent and surpassed expectations — the spicy pasta was actually spicy, the stuffed artichoke was fantastic, and the chicken sausage & pasta dish was light and well-​prepared. We’ll be back, but I’d only come on pasta night when the prices are more reasonable or if I could find a deal online (seems like most posters had one). Even on pasta night, three apps, four pastas and two kid’s meals ($ 10 for chicken fingers and fries, really?) ran $ 150 with tip, which felt a bit hefty. All said and done — good pasta and apps, a bit pricey, and be prepared to wait, but give it a try — would only have a date there if you could sit outside.

Had the Pappardelle Carbonara this evening with grilled chicken added. It was very good. My wife had Stuffed Rigatoni and my boy Spaghetti and Meatballs. Everything was fresh and delicious. We started with splitting a Caesar Salad and a plate of Eggplant Rollatini (only meal of the day so we were hungry!). Finished by splitting a Cannoli and had a Cappuccino. Delightful — start to finish. TIP: We didn’t experience as much sticker shock when the bill came compared to last visit because we ordered everything from their regular menu.