Sweet Basil Pizzeria Cafe

All around Amazing restaurant, the food was out of this world. The staff was so nice and polite. ¹⁰⁄₁₀ would recommend this restaurant to any one looking for food Italian food in Costa Mesa.

Great restaurant! Garlic bread is amazing, cheese ravioli and chicken Parmesan are great as well… great staff, great atmosphere! I will be definitely going back soon. (:

Nice staff but the food not good. Fried calamari was frozen processed in mass quantities. Linguini with white clam sauce tasted Jared. Not going back again. Staff is the reason for 2 stars.

Like the food but annoying when I got there at 8:40 I am told they close at 9 and won’t seat us then maybe close at 8:30 then.

I highly recommend Sweet Basil. I eat lunch there nearly every week. The food is consistently great and the service is fast and friendly. Today I tried the special, Salmon with linguine. It was outstanding.

Was in the area and wanted a quick little bite. Quaint little place with indoor and outdoor seating. As soon as I walked in, I was told I could sit wherever I wanted. I chose to sit outside in the patio. Thee was a nice cool breeze that kept everything in balance as the sun peeked through the clouds. I decided on the meat lasagna and it was loaded with ricotta cheese and plenty of lean beef. The top of the lasagna was a bit chewy, but overall still delicious. I took a meatball sandwich to go and will update after I try it. The server said the meatballs were not made in house, but were still one of her favorites. Service was friendly and prompt. I would go back to try something else when in the area.

Co-worker’s girl ordered us a couple of pies. The cheese pizza was delicious as well as the pep and mushroom pizzas. Never heard of this place before but damn well know I will order from here again. Only bad thing was cheese only was a little greasy. But besides that, very, very good.

The Pizza & Pasta is so tasty and love the food here plus the service is really good, l recommend this place for everyone.

We’ve dined here twice and ordered the meat lovers pizza. Amazing! We will be back.

I had food from here for take out at work and it was pretty delicious. I had the buffalo chicken pizza and although it wasn’t as hot as I’d expected with the buffalo sauce (or lack there of), the pizza was still pretty good. I also had the chicken strips and those were definitely good. Juice all white meat chicken. I would definitely eat there again.

Overpriced. Tasteless. Crust tastes like cardboard. There’s a lot better options for pizza in Costa Mesa.

I’m new to this area and only chose Sweet Basil because it was so close and had a
discount. Even with half off the price I wouldn’t recommend it. I ordered a margarita pizza and a calzone. Neither was acceptable. I think a frozen pizza would have tasted better and the calzone had a giant blob of ricotta cheese with a few of the items I added and wasn’t tasty at all. This is the first time I ever got food home and actually threw it away.
The only good thing I can mention is that the server was very friendly.

Great food and great service. I’m a regular here and my favorites are the sweet basil special and the pizza with pepperoni, olives and mushrooms. This is one of those Italian mom & pop restaurants that you love the find. With the owners behind the counter you can’t go wrong with anything on the menu… I Also recommend the cheese filled garlic rolls, shrimp scampi and shrimp Alfred… So good
Bön appétit

This place is amazing. We wanted a quick bite to eat, and I always think of this place. Amazing service, we were in and out of the restaurant in 20 minutes. Food was out right away, and was great. I got the eggplant parmesan, and it was so good! Pretty reasonable prices!

This place has a good lunch special that comes with a drink, a salad, and a entrée for under 10 $. Vegetarians can order the eggplant parmisian.
Deducting 1 star because I ate a tough peice or salmon that tasted fishy. Unexceptable because they charged extra for the salmon on the salad.
Update. Also, I just became vegan and I found they can make vegan speghetti for me. I just ask for no cheese on my pasta and get a side salad with Italian dressing. There Italian taste like they made it themselves, not like the bottled dressing from denys. Their side salad comes with shredded carrot and lots of olives. I love olives so I love thier salad.

I ordered the lunch special with the best barley soup. I also ordered fried zucchini, which tasted like freezer burn. The drink that came with it was ¾ full of ICE. I called to let them know and the girl who answered told me that the «drink was free anyways so… what’s the big deal?» We never have issues with these guys because my colleague orders from them a lot but those 2 things — NOT COOL!

First time ordering from here although I’ve been wanting to try it for years. I ordered 2 pizzas for 25 $ and was a little sad when I saw how small they were. After I put a slice into my mouth, my smile returned with the delicious taste of the pizza! Very delicious and will definitely be ordering from here again.
P.S ordering online was quick, easy and they also send you a link with an estimated delivery time, mine was delivered in 27 minutes (the timer said 45−60mins).

First visit to Sweet Basil for lunch. Service was friendly and efficient. Bread was ok. Soup was called minestrone which was not minestrone at all but a weak and skimpy vegetable soup with some pasta. It was good but please don’t call it minestrone because it’s not. I had an abundant bowl of spaghetti and two little meatballs. I asked the waitress if they made them in house and she replied that they were. They sure tasted and looked like Costco frozen meatballs.
My aunt thought their marinara sauce was too sweet but I enjoyed it. Just thought the meatballs could have been much better.
I do have to admit that I am very hard to please when it comes to Italian food what with being Italian myself having lived in Italy and am an excellent Italian cook. So I am maybe over picky. Would I go back? Probably not. It wasn’t bad but it just didn’t wow me.

We were supposed to have a business meeting at the Starbucks in this plaza but since it was 1230, decided to have lunch.
At first glance and the name, thought it might be asian but it is italian.
2 of us got seated and we were waiting for one more to join us. They instantky brought bread and marinara sauce which was really good and a nice surprise. Then asjed to take our orders.
We told them 1 more person coming like 4 times but 2 different servers kept asking to take our order.
I felt bad cause I knew they wouldn’t be there for 15 more minutes so I ordered an appetizer of calamari.
I finally picked calamari even though I didn’t want to but everything in appetizer was deep fried. That plus the bread and marinara sauce would fill me up.
The calamari was decent but a little chewy and they brought ranch dressing or something like that with it instead of marinara sauce?
I ordered the salmon salad and my friends had Greek salad and veggie panini.
The portions were large. I know they didn’t like the panini and it definitely didn’t look like a panini. More like a deep fried stuffed round pie. It looked super heavy. My salad was decent and the dressing was the best part. No crunch in the salad.
The food actually took forever to come out. The servers were super friendly… placed the bill on table even though I had the credit card out on the table in front of me. Maybe they didn’t see it but I tried to put it in as fast as I could and hand to her hut she walked away then came back asking if it was ready while we were talking.
Don’t think any of us would be back.
Gonna try the Inka grill next door instead.

This is the place to eat before the O.C. Fair or a concert at Pacific Amphitheater. Nice and close and better than the trashy, greasy, over-​priced food they have at the fairground!
We made a great choice and stopped here on 7−12−14 before a concert at the Pacific Amphitheater. In following up on Ms. M’s recent review: this place was empty when we went, so this review may help them out a little as they deserve it.
WE had the Hawaiian pizza and it was really good. Good hand-​made thick crust and the toppings were yummy. The dough was cooked through, so their oven was the right temperature. I just hate it when pizza is cooked in an oven too hot and the toppings are overcooked while the crust remains doughy inside. They did it right.
Even though we were getting pizza, we appreciated the free Italian bread and marinara sauce. We were hungry!
I took some photos of some paintings of Venezia on the wall. Rialto Bridge and other things. Very nice. Please God, please transport me back. Valentine’s Day in Venice is the bomb. I’ll try to find time to pull my pics off my phone.
The restaurant is clean and pleasant. Good prices.
First visit but we will come again.