Samario’s Restaurant

Pricey drinks and regular food. Food is tasty but I was expecting that there should be something more. Service is good.

Great place for leisurely meal. Service is attentive but not pushy. Love the old school ambiance. Drinks are pricy but not crazy. Portions are reasonable. Pasta is fresh. Had the chicken Marsala over linguini. Tasty!

Totally overrated. We have gotten pizza take out from Samario’s in the past so we decided to try it for dinner. We were at Samario’s for dinner about a year ago and it was terrible. I asked the waitress then if the raviolis were homemade and when she said yes I sort of equated that with fresh (shame on me). What reached our table that night was ravioli that was so undercooked that they were still crunchy. I haven’t the faintest idea why we expected anything more from Samario’s this time.
This visit, we were really coming just for pizza, but after sitting down in the dining room, we kind of felt pressured to order from the dinner menu since it is a much more formal setting and there were 5 of us (3 adults & 2 kids).
We ordered tortellini alfredo, penne a la vodka, and risotto. The tortellini were cooked well, but the sauce was so heavy and there was so much of it on the pasta that this dish was tough to finish. The vodka sauce had a weird sweetness to it that I found very off putting. And the risotto certainly was nothing to write home about, it was slightly overcooked. The thing that got me was the pizza.
I forgot from the past when we used to order take out from Samario’s that they have 2 different cheeses for their pizzas. On their NY style (and you have to specify), they use mozzarella cheese and this pizza is killer! If you don’t specify and just order the round pizza, you get this weird cheddar and american cheese blend that is nauseating. Needless to say, I forgot to specify that we wanted the NY style pizza.
I will say this though… when we asked them about it, the waitress took it in stride and then the pizza chef (who I assume was an owner) came out of the kitchen and offered to make us a new one or take it off of the bill. Since I wasn’t paying, it wasn’t my call, but the person who was treating told the owner not to worry about it, she told the waitress to take 20% off of the bill and, since they are so over priced, this may have been more than the price of the pizza any way. So they do get a nod for customer service. I might order take out pizza from them again some time, but we are definitely not returning to the dining room.

Simply Put:
Service was pretty good
Highly priced ‘Italian’
i. e. Canned Tomatoes & Tomato sauce (Salty), lots of margarine flavor…
Way overpriced for what came out to the table!
Dishes tried:
Gnocci (decent)
Penné ala Vodka (terrible)
Linguine Alfredo (heavy, bad)
Seafood fra Diavlo (salty, gross)

I love this place! Everything my husband and I have ever gotten here has been delicious! The bread is great, they always have intriguing specials, and be sure to leave room for dessert!

Pre Steamtown Marathon meal. Huge portions! Excellent rolls– big chunks of fresh hot bread, quite filling. They are served with cinnamon butter. Yummy! Entrees come with salad. I had chicken scampi and my BF had Chicken parm. Meat was tender and cut with a fork. Sweet red sauce on the chicken parm and other dishes our friends ordered. Scampi sauce not super heavy. The specials sounded amazing and we would’ve indulged if we weren’t running the marathon the next day. We walked by a very tasty looking pizza on our way out.
Def an authentic family owned spot. I think the owner/“Ma” sat us. A little noisy but that’s part of its charm. Would recommend this for visitors and future runners. However, I’d recommend going here Friday night before the marathon so you can really enjoy the offerings and doing a more simple pasta place on Saturday.
Only four stars because we had trouble getting our waitress at times, but I suppose marathon weekend made it busier than usual?

My boyfriend and I recently discovered Samario’s after the insistence from a friend that it was the best ever (they go there literally every Thursday for dinner). So we decided to go along with them to check out what all the hype was about. And now it is our favorite date restaurant in NEPA!
As soon as you step in, the atmosphere is really nice inside. Dimly lit, very romantic, great for an Italian date restaurant. This is definitely not just a pizza joint.
For appetizers we have ordered the stuffed mushrooms and the mild wing bites. Both were good, but I prefered the mushrooms. They were stuffed with a homemade sausage, and you got four big mushrooms.
They bring you bread which is delicious and freshly made. It is the thick, dense bread that feels like a soft (but heavy!) brick in your hand, and they serve it with cinnamon butter. It’s so yummy and it’s always warm! But don’t overload on bread, the servings are huge here.
The entrees all come with salad and bread. We normally wait to hear the specials because they’re normally incredible and they’ve been different every time we’ve been there. I ordered a chicken special once and it was great, and my boyfriend always gets the veal. The best part about Samario’s though is their pasta. You can just taste that some little old Italian lady made it by hand that day. It’s the freshest pasta I’ve ever had in Scranton. And they’re sauces are always good!
I always try to save room for dessert, but I never seem to make it. I always leave their stuffed.
Negatives:
1. Wine list is very short. They only have one option for each style of wine (i.e. You can order the cabarnet, but they don’t have options for brands…). I’m a wino so this is pretty important to me.
2. Inconsistency — I’ve gone there before and been BLOWN AWAY by their pasta dishes, but I just recently went there and got ravioli that was hard and undercooked. Kind of a disappointment.

Excellent Stromboli! Yummm