Pomodoro Grill & Wine Bar

Perfection to outdoor dining. Service is the best in the ROC, enjoy the Summer in Western NY. Wine and food and bread here is exceptional, make memories with the people you love.

This was the 2^nd try I gave Pomodoro. on University. I was there couple months ago and we had horrible service, waited very long for food they apologized, server blamed the cooks. Last evening we gave it another try, yet again it seemed very disorganized. The server was a young girl pleasant but we hardly saw her, we were inside and she was taking care of us and also outside on patio that was full. She never asked me if i wanted another glass of wine, waited again 45 min for food which i think is long time. Our meals were good, except the calamari was cooked too well done. Unfortunately after 2 tries i will never go back. Management needs to look at who they are hiring, train get more experienced servers.

If the service wasn’t so horrible, I would have given this place 5 stars. The food is *usually* consistently good. But the past 2 times I’ve been there, I’ve had to leave the table to find a server after sitting there with no water, no bread and no service for 20 minutes. Twice in a month this has happened. And each time the person who ended up serving us was walking around back and forth by our table the whole time we were waiting. I don’t get it. We were there for over 2 hours for my sisters birthday after all was said and done. 2 hours is a long time when you have a 3 year old and a 1 year old with you. Luckily, they were really well behaved. It also seems like there is a constant turnaround of employees there. That’s never good. I ran into 2 people I knew working there who had just started that week. Hopefully they get their shit figured out with the service. I’d like to be able to go back and not have to get up to find someone to serve me.

Went for light dinner of drinks, salads, and bruschetta. Ordered martinis: just regular classic gin and vermouth with a twist of lemon. The waiter was confused about the twist. He’d never heard of that. I assured him the bartender would surely know what a martini with a twist was. The waiter returned with the drinks but no lemon. Bartender didn’t understand either. I described it: just the yellow part of the lemon, not the fruit. He came back with, you guessed it, two slices of lemon. I had to cut the peel away from the pith. What’s the world coming to when a restaurant bar has a two column menu full of «-tini» drinks but no idea how to make an actual martini? When dinner came, the salad with beets seemed to have canned beets. Not acceptable.

Stopped by for the first time to have lunch. The steak panini I had was huge and delicious. This is a very nice place and the staff we’re very friendly.
If I had any complaint at all, it would be that the fries are just good not great.
The prices are a bit high for a typical lunch, but the quality and portion make up for it. Just bring an appetite.
I will be back for sure to try dinner.

Beware! We ordered an appetizer and 45 minutes later the wrong app showed up. I ordered seafood ciopinno and MOST of it showed up. The kitchen forgot to add all the seafood. The kitchen is a disaster. The waitress apologized endlessly while the manager acted like an idiot. Here’s one restaurant that we’ll never come back to.

Pomodoro on University has been our go-​to restaurant for years. I loved the atmosphere, the open kitchen, and the mature bartenders. Food was good and fairly priced. But all that has changed with their new place.
I find the new place completely lacking in warmth or atmosphere. I miss the cozy bar area and the numerous booths. The help all seems younger and less experienced now. And the food has definitely declined. We complained about a dish recently (the lasagna with eggplant — hard eggplant in it!) and they did absolutely nothing. The prices have gone up way too high also. I miss the old Pomodoro and probably won’t frequent the new place anymore.

Nice remodel — actually a whole new restaurant– the old space is going to be for catering. Food was very good — we had 3 different pizzas– I had the Grecca– very good! My wife had the salmon which she enjoyed also. It gets a little loud– but the place was 90% filled so that is to be expected. Bar area is nicer now too.

Overpriced and food is to salty was empty with slow service parking difficult shared bathroom with other restaurant

Great remodel! This place definitely had a plan and created an amazing place to dine and not to mention a phenomenal selection for the wine lover out there, almost 20 red selections by the glass and just as many if not more by the bottle. Only thing I hope they improve on is a Gluten free menu for those with Celiac

2.5
I’ve been there for lunch twice. The first time I wasn’t feeling well and only had tea and soup, but both were good as was the service.
I returned recently for lunch and had and Italian White Bean soup and green salad. The soup tasted like a cup of plain lackluster beans and the salad dressing was bland. My husband had the Salsiccia personal pizza and was underwhelmed, he didn’t even take the leftovers home.
Our young server was overwhelmed and inattentive and the food was average at best.

Yes, the patio was great and the ambiance outside was nice, but the service was terrible with mediocre food.
We stopped by on a Friday night with a party of 5 trying to get a table. They told us an hour wait, but we could grab drinks at the patio. We walked through the restaurant that had many many empty tables, but were told they did not have the staff to wait those empty tables. We head to the bar and they told us they were actually full service and we could grab a «bar» table close to the stage. So we found an empty table and borrowed a chair and we sat down. Took us 20 minutes to get menus. Ordered the food and 30 minutes later they tell us they have a table outside and would move our bill there. We shifted all our drinks and sat down at our table 15 feet away. Then 20 minutes later our food comes. My boyfriend and I shared a pizza and a pasta. The pasta itself was decent, but the pizza looked and tasted straight up like microwave pizza. Look at the picture… Super disappointed. At this point, we just wanted the check so we could head over to the revelry. Took another 20 minutes for that.
Won’t be back for the food. Possibly for drinks and I’m just going to pay at the bar.

Last night was my first ever visit to Pomodoro’s, University Location. I don’t know if the Pittsford location is any better, but I don’t think I’d ever go back.
I’m not one to complain about service, or even food for that matter. I have NEVER complained about a restaurant before, so that should speak for itself about how bad my experience was.
For starters, our waiter was awful. He was rude, inattentive, and just had a bad attitude, that even his, at times, «fake niceness» couldn’t cover up. Eventually we didn’t want to ask him for anything else, like more water, parmesan cheese, or oil for the bread, because he was getting too irritated, even though I don’t think we were being that difficult.
Secondly, myself and another person at our table (we were a table of 5) both ordered the linguini limone. Both of our pastas were gummy, which I’ve never experienced before. Also, everyone at our table tried our plates and agreed. When we mentioned it to our waiter, which we really didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to pay the $ 20 just to have it thrown away and still be hungry, he told us «the pasta is home made and isn’t dried, so it has a gummy texture.» I don’t think I’ve ever had home made pasta, but I’m sorry. If it’s supposed to be like that, why would anyone eat it? It’s gross.
So anyways, he comped our two meals, which was the best thing he did for our entire table. However, I left still starving, unsatisfied, and our table was not impressed. I’d recommend going anywhere else, even olive garden, because I would’ve left there atleast having eaten a flavorful non-​gummy pasta dish, for less than the cost and hassle of Pomodoro’s.

Amazing! I love their new outside area. Friendly staff. Caesar salad to start which has bow tie pasta in it. So good with creamy dressing. The cola was little flat but cold. Penne with chicken & brocolini for dinner. Tomato vodka sauce. Delicious & a big portion with left overs. My parents shared a pizza which they said was great & looked yummy. Will go back. Manager did check on us. Owner was there but he never looked happy

Very good food, ambiance and drinks. Ordered a pizza and it was phenomenal. The waitress was very attentive and was knowledgeable of the menu. Their desserts are wonderful and I highly recommend Pomodoro.

Had the porkchops and Brusselsprouts entrée as part of the Restaurant Week meal. The food was okay, but the real reason the porkchops were even worth three stars were because of the gravy on them. The Mediterranean Mule was a good drink, just not very strong.

I love Pomodoro for low key dinners at a less expensive price. One of the main things I love is the marinated olives and whole garlic they bring out with the bread to every table. I also love that you can mix in so many different things with your pasta or salad entrees — my favorite is mixing in salmon to greek salad or the linguini lemon (my favorite entrée). We usually get dessert and I’ve never had a bad one there.
The restaurant itself is really nice with indoor and outdoor seating. The bar is also hopping with an older crowd (40s) which is fun. Always had good service too!

Nice patio, mediocre food, disorganized service. Friday night, 8 pm seating. Only had to wait for an outside table for 10 minutes, but we called ahead.
Drinks:Had to wait for my husbands gin and tonic because they were short a bartender. (One of my pet peeves are when I’m offered excuses.)
Food: We ordered a Caesar salad and the Linguini Limon. The salad was your ordinary run of the mill Caesar with chicken and a few bow tie pasta, nothing special, $ 14. The linguini, also $ 14, was very bland and had the texture of glue, because it was WAY over cooked. It tasted as if it had been cooked much earlier in the evening and hung out in a warming pan until someone ordered it. Not good, not good at all.
Service: Our waitress was nice, but the support staff wasn’t very attentive. We had to ask for silverware twice and in his own words, «He didn’t see us,» when he finally delivered our bread.
Why is it, that almost every Rochester area restaurant that has nice outdoor or scenic seating, falls so short when it comes to food?
Pomodoro, I can’t recommend you and we most likely won’t be back.

Pomodoro’s outdoor space is one of the best in Rochester and over the years that is the main reason we frequented them. The food has been ok and somewhat overpriced for what you got. Given this we had not been back for almost two years.
So last Friday we returned with friends and due to weather could not sit out on their newly redesigned and reconfigured outdoor space (it looks smaller but nicer). Also they are building out the space next to Saha to be the new restaurant. Rumor has it that the old space will be used for special events. Anyway we ate inside and had a good experience though the service seemed unnecessarily rushed since they did not need the tables.
We started with drinks at the bar since happy hour was still in progress with a few deals (only available at the bar). Unfortunately their excellent seafood bisque was not on the menu which is too bad because it is the best in town. Two of us ordered pasta, Penne with chicken and broccoli — good but a bit bland, and the spaghetti capriccio (sp?) with shrimp. It was good not great with a decent amount of shrimp. Others got pizza which was good. The entrees came with small salads which were good. We could not remember if entrees used to come with salads or if that is a new addition.
We will return on a night when we can sit outside since I still think that is the best feature.

So I have a bunch of dietary issues: no garlic, no onions, no gluten (i am allergic) but I am also a fitness enthusiast and therefore on a lean diet (no salt, no sugar, etc).
Pomodoro at lunchtime knocked my socks off. They grilled a beautiful custom made fresh catch (mahi) and a beautiful stack of asparagus meeting all my dietary needs. I was so impressed. This is not easy to find.
Nothing here is pre-​marinated or pre-​prepped which allows them to make these special provisions for me. Truly a rare thing in the dining out world!!!
Giving them 5 stars for being so flexible with preparing my food!!! Thank you.