Ristorante Giuseppe

Wonderful homecooking, atmosphere and BYOB Have FUN!

This is easily my favorite Italian restaurant– dining there is like being at your best friend’s house.
First– it’s important to note it is cash only. Just hit an ATM and grab some cash. You won’t need much– the prices are very very reasonable.
The food here is great! Hearty, tasty– and packed with flavor. My favorite thing to get is the eggplant parm appetizer. It’s so damn good.
You really can’t go wrong with anything on the menu, and keep your eyes out for the special «Pasta Alex» it’s so tasty.
Save room for dessert– the cheesecake and cannoli are freshly made by the owners (Pasquale) wife.
This awesome restaurant is BYOB, so feel free to grab some beer or wine and pair with your meal.
Last but not least– they do catering and it is tremendous. They catered several family events and as usual– the food and price point cannot be beat.
Enjoy your meal and say hi to Pasquale for me.

My new favorite restaurant in Scottsdale! Visitng family for the holidays and this place was suggested by my brother. LOVED the food, ambience and the service so this will become a must on very future visit to Scottsdale. Everything was outstanding but the Pasta Alex was the favorite among the 5 of us. Visited Italy earlier this year and we felt like we were there againlast night!

Well if had a choice of ZERO stars I would have done that for Giussepe’s! We have been going to Giuseppe’s for many years & thought food was better than most and BYOB was great to bring in wine for us! The billing has always been weird even for a small party of 2, but the last 2 times with large groups it has been a total mystery to figure out with no line items for food & just a total on bottom? Plus cash only to pay really??? Not knowing the bill line items is not normal anymore anywhere!
I’m warning fellow Unilocaler’s too that we just had our final meal here with a group of 12 going out here for dinner, we ordered dinner family style with brushetta, an antipasta salad with literally no meat on it, a ravioli with mushrooms no meat, pasta Alex house favorite, & chicken piccata to get the final mysteriously excessively large bill $ 450.00. All the couples are trying to figure out how this could be so high in a restaurant with items priced on the menu than $ 8 – 16, with our bill at $ 37+ per person. Why would you again, hand us one piece of paper with a number on it with nothing else? This would never fly for anyone in corporate america.
I agree with what Lee W. said!
It’s a sad day when a once great restaurant succumbs to such a ridiculous money grab from longtime customers!
UGH UGH

Normally this would be a glowing review, but I feel compelled to warn fellow Unilocalers that we just had our second, and final, mysteriously excessively large bill. We have been going to Guiseppes for years because the food was amazing, it was BYOB, and the prices were reasonable. In November we went for a family celebration, ordered a similar amount of food as in previous visits, and our bill was almost $ 100 higher than the last time we had dined there. Even more surprising, the check wasn’t itemized and it’s a cash only business. The final nail in the coffin was just 3 days ago. A group of 12 of us went to dinner and ordered family style. We has bruschetta, antipasti salad (missing the meat) mushroom ravioli, pasta Alex, and chicken piccata. Somehow, in a restaurant with nothing higher priced on the menu than $ 18, our bill was almost $ 38 per person. Once again, we were handed a piece of paper with a number on it and nothing else.
It’s a sad day when a once great restaurant succumbs to such a ridiculous money grab from longtime customers.

I had a friend take me there for lunch today. This is the way it should be when you go to a small restaurant. Very personable owner. I’m not a big Italian food eater but this food was delicious.
Relax and enjoy. No seriously enjoy because the owner makes you want to just enjoy your meal and experience.
Other restaurants should go here to learn how to run a family restaurant

I love this place. I LOVE it. It does something so many other restaurants try but fall short of doing: Ristaurante Guissepe makes you feel like you’re home, part of the family.
The moment you walk in to this little restaurant you meet Pascal and his staff/​family. They usher you to your table, open your bottle, and offer you an appetizer. Meanwhile, Pascal moves from table to table, warmly greeting everyone as a friend, laughing with them and making each guest feel as though they belong. The wine flows as food makes it to each of the red checkered tables adorned with campy pictures of family events. And the food… I have been tempted many times by their various specials, but I keep coming back for Pasta Alex. Delicious, perfectly prepared pasta, cheese, and spicy sausage… incredible.
Remember to bring cash and a bottle of wine, then sit back enjoy the atmosphere.

My boyfriend has been trying to take me here for years… It’s been years! But every time he brings up this place, I’m not in the mood for Italian. Since I’ve been under the weather this week, I decided to order takeout last night from here. I ordered the Pasta Alex and he ordered the Peppino Special. We also got a side of the garlic bread and the tiramisu. Tiramisu is my favorite dessert and I have the biggest sweet tooth. I was so excited to see it on their menu. My favorite place to get it at the moment is at Pomo Pizzeria.
With that said, I was disappointed with the tiramisu when I got home and got to see it. It looks like they soaked two lady fingers and then made a tiramisu sandwich with it by adding mascarpone cheese in the middle. Half of each lady finger was dry so it was kind of a sad dessert… Especially at $ 4.95.
The Pasta Alex was delicious. I would definitely get it again. I didn’t bother trying my boyfriend’s dish because it had similar pasta, just a different sauce. It was kind of intimidating as well because there were so many different chunks of meat in his order. I wasn’t in the adventurous mood last night. The menu online said it is made with a loaded baked ziti and that was one of the reasons he ordered it. We thought it would be of penne or rigatoni or another pasta of that sort but it was the same pasta used in my dish. Not sure if he will order this dish again.
The garlic bread was just okay. Maybe it’s something we need to dine in for but it just looked like it was covered in butter and paprika for color. I’ve had much better garlic bread elsewhere. Heck, I make better garlic bread! I’ll give this place another try before I have a final decision about it. After all, it’s just down the street and my dish was pretty good. Hopefully, I can increase the amount of stars at my next visit.

This place is terrible! Service is not good. Food is no better than Olive Garden… STAY AWAY!
At least that is what I want people to think. It’s getting too hard to get a table in this place. Our favorite italian restaurant by far. Seriously, don’t try this place.

A true taste of Italy! Can’t think of a nicer family than the one who runs this restaurant. We are always greeted with smiles and genuine, good conversation… A truly fun & relaxing atmosphere. Bring your own alcohol (no charge), and they’ll open it for you and bring you more when you need it. Now, for the food, everything is good so you really can’t go wrong. The bruschetta is a great starter. The Pasta Alex is a favorite of ours, spicy with a hint of garlic. And to finish it off I recommend the tiramisu, light and delicious. Overall, this restaurant is a family favorite… we return as often as we can.

Amazing personal family style service. The staff made us feel welcome and provided a fun warm atmosphere. I would go back in a heartbeat. I saw a complaint below that it was loud. Its a family style authentic restaurant so if you’re surprised that it’s loud you don’t deserve to enjoy the delicious food and awesome service. If you want quiet atmosphere go eat some French food.
The food was fresh and authentic. They have fresh seafood saturdays.
Highly recommended

The website (
) says the hours are …
M-​F 11am to 8:30pm, Sat 5pm to 9pm, and Sun 5pm to 8pm. The sign on the door said Open on one side and Closed on the other side that hangs from a chain. Today I stopped by at 2:30pm and the Open side of the sign was displayed. When I got to the door, I was met by someone and not allowed in. I was told the business was closed and they don’t open until 5pm, then had the door closed abruptly. I was made to feel very unwelcome and unwanted. I’m not sure why a business would treat customers or potential customers this way. If you changed your hours, why not change the sign on your door and update your website. The owner could have also been pleasant to me.

First time having dinner here although I have done take out sandwiches. Upon seating, I saw a woman eating a delicious looking pasta with red sauce and asked the server what it was. It was Mostaccioli. Yup, I wanted that. Ordered a meatball on the side to find out what kind of meatballs they made. Another person ordered linguini alfredo and hubby ordered his old stand by: eggplant and chicken combo which came with pasta on the side.
First they served some rustic italian bread that I liked but hubby thought was stale. Not too stale though. Good enough that two of us ate it without too much complaint. It came with a garlicky herb butter that everybody liked. Do you know that hunger makes stale bread go away? The Mostaccioli came out looking amazing and if looking amazing was not enough, it tasted like it had been made by the Gods. It was cooked al dente perhaps more like al dentissimo, but really, really good. The linguini alfredo was magnificent (I was allowed to taste it only because everybody wanted to taste my amazing pasta!). And then… there is the story of the eggplant/​chicken combo. Firstly, the chicken was overcooked and then the most offensive of it all was that it had an over-​refrigerated taste. Have you ever kept something in the refrigerator so long that the flavors from the other foods permeated it? Yup, I tasted it and assured hubby that he was not going to get food poisoning that it was just a case of «we kept the chicken in the fridge too long.» The overcooking, in my humble culinary opinion, is that the eggplant and the chicken are both pre-​cooked and when an order comes in they put the sauce and cheese on it and then reheat it in a salamander or the oven. (IN MY HUMBLE OPINION). So the mood was not so light at our table tonight. You know that when the chief is not happy it is not a good thing. But the chief was really nice about it and didn’t say anything to the staff about the chicken. Next scenario.
I had my heart set on having some tiramisu so I called over the server and asked him about the tiramisu. I was concerned about having old desserts served to me. He went on and on about how the desserts are made by so-​and so’s wife and they are fresh, fresh, fresh, etc etc etc. As he went through his litany of desserts, he mentioned flourless chocolate cake which hubby loves. I figured that I would make up for his bad meal by getting him the chocolate cake. So I said, we’ll have the tiramisu and the chocolate cake and almost in an arrogant, insulted fashion, he said: I’ll continue telling you about the gelatos. The fact that I already told him what I wanted was of no consequence. He continued his litany of gelato flavors almost like Forrest Gump’s buddy Bubba did as he called off the shrimp dishes from all corners of the earth. I waited for his conclusion painfully, hoping he would turn around and get our desserts. He did. Finally. Next scenario.
He arrived with 3 dishes. One with the flourless cake which was to brighten my «sunshine’s» day and provide relief to the disappointment of his meal. Another had all whipped cream in it which we were to share. And the third dish was a «cannoli???» Wait, wait… wait… let me look more closely… no, it’s not a small cannoli. it’s… it’s… OMG… it’s our tiramisu!!! A tiramisu the size of a cannoli, I KID YOU NOT. Too bad I didn’t take a photo of it. Two lady fingers (used to make tiramisu) was the extent of the tiramisu. Never ever have we seen anything like this before. Could have easily been one bite except I am too much of a lady to do that in a restaurant. If I had been home with a tiramisu of that size, I would have bent my head backwards like a seal and scarfed down the entire piece in one bite. And then to make it worse, hubby compared the flourless chocolate cake to others I have brought home for him and it did not meet his standard. Bust #2. Score: 0 – 0. Next scenario.
We get the bill and it is a slip of paper with a total amount due, non-​itemized, a few names of the dishes scribbled down but no prices-​Just the total due. Reminds me of the bills Tony Soprano used to get at his favorite haunt except that Tony didn’t have to pay. How do I know if my bill was correct? I don’t. Do I have to sit there with a calculator? Maybe. And maybe someone else, not me.
Don’t know what to say except that my pasta dish was amazing. The question is whether all the other bad stuff that happened during this dinner can be made up by even the best of pastas.

If I give this place only one star, will it keep everyone from going to my favorite Italian restaurant? Giuseppe’s is by far the freshest, most delicious Italian food in PHX. And – as if that weren’t enough – the atmosphere and the owner Pascal make this feel like home. After a visit or two, Pascal will remember you, and a friendly smile will become a warm hug. I would like to say that everything I’ve tried is great, but in all honesty I order from a couple of favorites every time. The Pasta Alex with its addicting spicy and meaty flavors is superb. The cheese tortellini is cooked perfectly. The cardinale sauce is a must, and the bruschetta (whether the standard one on the everyday menu or one of the many daily special versions) adds the perfect touch. On top of all that, this place is BYOB with no corkage fee (although you may want to share a bit with Pascal to say thank you).

Great food, service and value. Bring in your own bottle of wine and enjoy an amazing meal. The service is the best in town. Cheers!

Cons:
Hot inside
Loud inside, small place
Owner sitting with patrons next to our table drinking and loudly cursing. MAJOR TURN OFF /​NOT A GREAT 1^st IMPRESSION. Especially with our young daughter sitting at the table.
Linguini with clams– not fresh, out of a can, sauce was heavy on the oily side.
Cash only, no itemize receipt– no tax shown on bill.
$ 80 bucks — nothing special
Pros:
Me not spending any more money here.

This place was really good!
We chose to go here for a romantic date which was a mistake… not that we didn’t have a good time but it was not a romantic setting at all. The name sounded romantic to me. But it was the opposite of romantic. Loud, brightly lit, sassy servers, and children running amok. Reminded me instead of a raucous Italian family reunion. But still a good time!
I love that it’s BYOB with no corkage fee. That itself is a great value on it’s own.
We started with the bruschetta. We weren’t planning on getting an appetizer but we were talked into it. Yes, the servers are a bit pushy with the upselling. But the bruschetta was tasty and bursting with fresh flavor so we were glad we did.
I had the eggplant rollettini and my husband had the pork Parmesan. The portions weren’t as big as they are in other Italian restaurants. I was expecting leftovers to take home. But still very filling. My eggplant was very tasty but a bit salty. My husband and I both loved the marinara. It was very unique. I detected a warm seasoning to it… cinnamon or nutmeg? I don’t know but it was good. My husband thought his pork was delicious. He said it lacked breading but was still excellent.
We will definitely return but we learned our lesson. Expect a casual and energetic good time with delicious food. We see this being a great spot for a double date… each couple bringing a great bottle of wine.

Loved the food last night.
We made reservation (group of 10) at 5pm and we were there until almost the resturant closed.
My favorite was tomorrow’s special, asiago beef ravioli, home made. They just finished making them for the next day, and shortly after I ordered regular beef lavioli, they came to me to offer thie asiago beef. I must say this was the best ravioli I’ve ever had. If I had more bread, I would be scouping up all the sauce that was left on the plate.
We ordered four other pasta, two salad, and some appertizer.
Everything we ordered was very good. Why not five star? It’s probably because of pasta. I would prefer a slightly more on al dente side.
They have a good selection on desert too. Home made tiramisu was very moist.
They have several different today’s special. If you like something, call ahead a few days in advance and request. I would definately request my ravioli before my next visit here.
Cioppino is highly recommended too

My family has been coming here for at least fifteen years. Not sure why I am just now writing a review, but better late than never! This little family owned and operated Italian place has always, and will always, be amazing. The service, the food, the atmosphere, everything about this place is as good as it gets.
At least one or more of the family members are working every night, and they take great pride in what they produce. There are family photos all around, as well as on the tables. The 3 boys all work in the restaurant when they are available or in town, and even if you don’t get served by one of them, the service is always amazing.
They have specials every night which I love, because I am still able to try new things even though I have been coming here for years. My favorite’s are always their ravioli and their Giuseppe’s salad. Some of their menu items are named after each of the sons, which is a really nice gesture.
They also allow you to bring your own wine, and no corking fee! Such a great part, and it makes the bill a little lower than if you were to go elsewhere.
We will go to this place as long as it is around. We go here as soon as one of our friends comes into town for the first time, and they always request to go back when they come back into town. Even though we live in Cave Creek, we make the trip to this little restaurant. Great place for family, food, and a whole lotta love!

Giuseppe’s is really one of a kind. As soon as you walk in, you can tell that your experience is going to be great. You’re warmly greeted by the staff and they give you a sense that you’re almost walking into their home for dinner. That’s the vibe that I got because of how welcoming the entire staff was. I had never been here before, but they make you feel as if you’ve been a regular for years.
The food. My God… the food! You must-​I repeat, you must try the eggplant appetizer. Your life as you know it will never be the same. Don’t bother wearing socks because they will be knocked off. Luckily, I wore sandals so I was ok. It comes with delicious garlic bread. Who doesn’t love garlic bread, right? I got the Pasta Alex. The portion is huge! I had to take some home (it was good even warmed up the next day) It has a bit of a kick to it, not too much where you can’t enjoy your meal, but enough to make sure you don’t pass out from carb overload. Add this to your must try’s.
You can bring your own booze! No more wondering if a place has this or that, you bring what you want! You’ll need to sit down for this part. There is no corkage fee! You read correctly, my friend. No fee. Nada.
You can’t leave without trying their sweet treats of deliciousness! The cheesecake is amazing! Everything that they have there is made there. How cool is that?!
You really need to do yourself a favor and check this place out. I will be returning… with stretchy pants.