Ciao

I won’t return here. The waiter offered us bottled water that I suspected wasn’t free but since he didn’t offer tap we took it. The check came and we were charged $ 7 a bottle and a 18% gratuity was automatically on check. The wait staff didn’t earn that as they hardly acknowledged us other than taking our order, serving food, and billing us. The pasta with grandma’s meatballs was bland/​fair. The Caesar’s salad looked wilted. The margherita pizza was good. Our bill for lunch … The salad, pasta with meatballs, pizza, two bottles of water, and an iced tea was about $ 91.

Went for the lunch special, which was $ 12 with a main fish and salad. The taste was alright, but considering the tons of great Italian restaurants nearby, nowhere near good enough. I could have had better Italian food at Olive Garden. The service wasn’t great either. When we got the bill, it included 20% tip – mandatory for lunch of two! We paid with a twenty and they didn’t give back the exact change either, just kept the coins. We didn’t want to complain for a couple of cents, but this is not how you run a service business. I will not be coming back here again.

Not sure why all the bad reviews, we had a good experience. The grilled calamari over arugula was light and tasty while the brushetta with procioutto was delicious and a light meal in itself. We enjoyed two salads; Dolce and Mista, both were refreshing and a good portion. Service was a little slow, like he kind of forgot about us, but besides that, I recommend it!

Terrible place,
I went there on December 2011, and ordered the Pasta Special ($ 24), which is supposed to have lobster inside, the food smelled terrible, to be more explicit rotten fish, and I know what I’m talking about as I am a chef Instructor…
The waiter refused to comp the dish, and included the tip in the bill…
In short don’t go there ever, spam out of a can is a better experience.

I had a good experience here, but holy wow so many negative reviews!
I had some meetings in the area one afternoon recently and some time to kill in between, so I stopped in for some lunch. The place was empty — I was 1 of 2 customers inside. I was greeted warmly and brought out water and bread right away.
I wound up getting the lunch special — penne vodka with a side salad for $ 9.00. The penne was pretty good, although the chunks of sauteed bacon were unexpected and, while I LOVE bacon, it just wasn’t right with the vodka sauce. Still, not bad though.
The staff was accommodating and totally cool about me hanging out at my table for a while after I was done eating — I ordered a tea and did some work before I had to get to my next meeting.
When the check came, I pointed out that they hadn’t charged me for the tea, and my waiter told me it was on the house, so that was nice. They didn’t add the tip to the bill either, which everyone is complaining about. Maybe that’s just for dinner?
Either way, I enjoyed my meal and my time there and I’d definitely give Ciao another shot.

My dinner at Ciao was without a doubt the worst dining experience I’ve had in NYC.
It was pouring out and there were only two tables seated when we walked in on a Friday evening. The server just motioned to the seating area and did not even walk us to a table. He was far from friendly and nowhere to be found for about half the meal.
The menu is pretty basic for Italian food, but for the quality, it is WAY overpriced. The wine list is just embarrassing for an Italian restaurant, especially in NYC. I didn’t even considering a glass with the cheapest (a white Zin) at $ 9. My Caesar salad tasted like I could have gotten it from a cheap lunch place. My friend’s penne vodka was mediocre and almost cold. I ordered the special, a seafood risotto, which was awful (and $ 30!). The seafood was quite overcooked and the rice was watery and mushy.
Also, the restaurant left the front door open for about 30 minutes (in January. During a rainstorm.) until I asked them to close it.
Absolutely nothing about this restaurant would ever make me want to go back.

2.5
overall the experience wasn’t bad, I would go again if the great weather repeats itself and i sit outdoor again. I had the insalata dolce which is gorganzola cheese, candied walnuts, and balsamic vinegared pears on a spring mix. honestly, I feel like i swallowed it whole, it was pretty good. I also ordered a glass of sangria, but was a little weirded out by the two lip marks that greeted me as the glass was set in fron of me. The waiter left so quickly, i didn’t get a chance to mention it and had to wait about another 5 minutes before I could notify him and have it replaced. Though when I got it the second time around, it was pretty tasty and strong! I’m sure he just dumped the same contents from the first glass into a cleaner one, but I enjoyed it all the same. Our table also ordered the antipasto and that was alright too.
How else do I put it, the service, food, and restaurant were all alright, just not much more than that. Had the dirty glass not happened, I wouldn’t have hesitated to give it a stirdy 3 star rating.

SKIP THIS PLACE by all mean! Was it bad? Yes it was terrible!
1.5 hours for dinner (1 app, 2 entrees) really?
Automatic 18% tip for shitty service?
Cold/​room temperature food?
Nasty ass bathroom!
I can’t believe that our waiter decides to hang out with his friends between service! Food was cold/​room temperature due to sitting at the service window while waiter decides to ignore service!
Seriously get the hell outta here ASAP!

Come the fuck on, I get that you are an Italian restaurant but that is no excuse to make me a mimosa with moscato and then charge me $ 12 for it. Seriously it tasted like cat pee.
They get one more star for the salad I had that was not terrible.
Avoid this place, unless you like cat pee…

My friend and I were wandering around the West Village on a nice afternoon and decided to make a quick pit stop to rest our feet and since we were both starting to feel a little peckish, we also decided on a small bite. The weather finally broke, so we wanted to take advantage of the sunshine and saw that Ciao had outdoor seating.
When I sat down to check in, I gasped at the 2 star rating (yes…it’s that serious) but I figured we weren’t going to be having a full-​out meal so it would be fine, and it completely lived up to its expectation.
My friend had the Laurina Bruschetta and I had the Insalata Dolce. There was nothing mind blowing about the food and it served its purpose.

I feel bad because as you may see I only Unilocal the ones I love… but in this case I think I have to warn people, something has changed in the Ciao landscape. I have been here many times in the past but it appears to have changed in a bad way.
They were a good family run business with italian food and reasonnably priced wines, the décor was old school but still very well kept.
Now they upped the price but not the maintenance, your also handed the old menu with the old wines, but when you order your told «sorry that is not good anymore those were cheap wines, we have better now»… but oh they are going to be triple the prices!
I will miss the old ciao, because I have fond memories of going there often sitting outside in the sun or going there (family style), with 10 – 15 people, but they need to either keep things as they were or let people know that they have changed, don’t pull the bait and switch, because that won’t help anyone

The service was not bad, but the wine tasted like vinegar and I was very surprised that they include the tip as well as tax, so a 9 dollar wine come out to over 12.
I will never go back, and if I just looked at Unilocal before I would have never went… Only good thing was I got the Mavrick badge :0

Me: «Shit, I didn’t check the Unilocal reviews until now. Look…»
(Hands friend phone).
Friend: «What do we do???»
Me: «I’m not sure, we already ordered drinks»
Waiter: Here are your drinks, do you guys want an appetizer?
It is always important to check Unilocal reviews before going to a restaurant. The Unilocal reviews for Ciao are spot on. It is certainly a two star dining experience, and nothing more. From the outside, Ciao looks like a great place, unique to the other restaurants on Bleecker. However, the food leaves a lot to be desired. The pasta was overcooked and veal was undercooked.
The service was the only redeeming quality of the meal. the waitress was new and eager to learn. She would always refill the drinks and make sure out meal met expectations. Even though the meal was mediocre at best, I am too much of a nice guy to let the new waitress get discouraged at her new job.

Wow… where do I start?
Well, hubby and I popped into this place after having a lovely and romantic dinner in the area. I was in the mood for a damn good dirty martini and we came across Ciao. I love the feel of the 1920’s bartender and the décor. It was nice.
We sat at the bar and ordered our drinks and then the show began. The host and the bartender were bickering back and forth about who steals from the business. They were accusing each other of things we didn’t care to know anything about. It was uncomfortable and I wish someone who owned the place could have kept these two in check.
Hubby and I tried to gulp down our drinks as quickly as possible so we could get the hell out of there. It was rude and unprofessional and any initial feelings I had about this place were completely marred after the spectacle in the bar area. Bad business…

Is Ciao quaint and cozy looking, packed with patrons? Yes to all of the above. In fact, it was the charming little bistro feel that convinced my friend and I to give this place a shot. She was in the mood for a local little joint that would secretly reveal amazing quality food and with so many stuffed tables, how could we go wrong?
How naïve we were…
After a not too long wait, we were seated at a tiny little table in the back. While the menu didn’t sounds particularly riveting, it did have your pretty standard Italian options. I figured, I’m sure the pastas can’t be that terrible. Well let me just say that is very clearly the wrong attitude to ever enter a restaurant with.
The pasta certainly didn’t taste homemade, and if the sauce was, they did a horrible job at it. I had the Strozzapreti Con Gamberi, a «hand rolled pasta with shrimp in a pesto cream sauce.» It sounded like the shrimp might be inside, but rather it was a green bowl of average pasta with a couple of tiny, overcooked shrimp thrown on top. Throwing on more creamy pesto does not mask the grocery store, soggy pasta and poorly done seafood. So disappointing and a total waste of a meal! My friend went with the Rigatoni Alla Napoletana, rigatoni in a three-​meat ragu. Again, you’d be amazed how mediocre sauce can be. Bland, one note and it seemed like it was straight from a jar (although if that was the case it might have been an improvement).
Not only was the meal completely unforgivably below decent standards, but to add insult to injury the red wine tasted like it had been buffered with seltzer water! Furthermore, the staff took forever and they weren’t particularly friendly nor helpful! And if all that weren’t enough to cement this as one of my worst Italian meals yet, the bathroom was the size of a shoebox, and was completely filthy.
All in all, it was a miserable experience and I don’t think I’d ever want to return to give it another chance. Disheartening on all counts.

I hate Ciao so much. Every time I pass by I remind of the terrible experience I had there.
Disgusting white wine for 11 dollars, 2 leaves of salads and half a tomatoe for 12 dollars, lousy bad terrible service, and 18% tips already included (WTF ?)
Every time I pass by I’m just so upset that I’ve been here, wasting my time, my money, and time with my friends.
Make sure never to stop in this restaurant.
Every time I pass by I feel sorry for people seated there. I just feel like telling people who havent order yet: ” Don’t do this, you can still leave !!!“
Totally my worst experience in a restaurant in NYC. TOP #1 worst restaurant ever.

Can we give 0 stars here? No? Darn… well, as a warning to all of you… AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!
My boyfriend and I came here one day over the summer because we were in the area and were in the mood for Italian. Yes, there are plenty of other places around Bleecker that we could have gone to, but we never order anything too fancy, so we settled on this place (mistake #1).
Let’s start with food first. Our appetizer, which had slices of bread with gorgonzola and walnut, came out at a good time, but it wasn’t anything spectacular and was unfortunately the best thing about that dinner. My seat was in direct view of the kitchen (run by Latinos), and I saw one of the guys take out pre-​packaged dough (mistake #2) to make my boyfriend’s entrée (pizza). Our entrees took a while to come out, but we dug in when they finally arrived and were immediately disgusted. The pizza dough was sour (mistake #3)! I ordered seafood linguine, which is usually the safe choice for me… not this time! The sauce was beyond salty, like they had used sea water to cook my food (mistake #4), and the seafood was borderline spoiled (mistake #5). I tried to take a few more bites because I was hungry (mistake #6), but after 4 – 5 bites, I couldn’t stomach it anymore and drank ALL of my water. We called the waiter over and had him take it back, and I NEVER send my food back. I can’t remember if he apologized. Thank goodness neither of us had any bathroom problems later.
Now onto the service. First off, the restaurant was empty when we came in (mistake #7…that should’ve been our clue to not go in), yet it took the waiter 10 minutes after we knew what we’d order for him to come by and ask us if we needed help (mistake #8). Then, when the bill came, we were in for the biggest shock of our lives: not ONLY was the seafood linguine still charged on the bill (mistake #9), but there also was a 20% gratuity added (mistake #10)! UNBELIEVABLE! My boyfriend immediately informed the waiter about the two offenses; the waiter took off the seafood linguine charge, but he argued that the 20% gratuity was already stated on the menu (so that foreign visitors don’t «forget») and therefore cannot be taken off. Umm, dude, we’re more native than you are, and it’s GRATUITY… patrons give that to you if they’re GRATEFUL… and we certainly weren’t! We paid the remainder of the bill and got the hell out of there. My boyfriend later wrote to the Better Business Bureau (yeah, it was that bad) and was refunded the «gratuity» amount. But we were never so disgusted as we were that day.
So in case you weren’t keeping track, 10 mistakes is 10 mistakes too many. I can’t believe this place is still opened with such shitty food and shitty service. AVOID!

Where else can you be over charged for shitty wine, eat greasy bland tasting food and be solicited for money by a homeless man wearing feety pajamas in the middle of August all in the same place?
The service sucks and I even debated skipping out on the check because it took the brain dead waitress 30 minutes to retrieve it.
Oh well, at least we got to enjoy the live music playing at Slane and see a woman wearing a one piece zebra outfit. Good thing her friend put her in a cab.
Fail.

Ragu makes a better sauce than what Ciao served over the gnocchi I ordered. My boyfriend’s spaghetti carbonara left a lot to be desired as well.
The service was ok, but then we got the check. I didn’t notice the tip was included in the total price until I got the signature slip… why are they including an 18% tip on bills for parties of two that are less than $ 50? My boyfriend tried to defend the practice, but never have I experienced that in any establishment I’ve dined at in New York. Unnacceptable.

Referred here by Raffetto’s Corp. I found their special of salad and pasta for $ 8.99 to be reasonably priced. Although I can’t comment on their wine and liquor, I found their $ 6 draft beer to be within range of every other drink in New York so I can’t condemn them for that as others have. Their penne a la vodka was amazing as was their lobster ravioli. And by «their,» I mean Raffetto’s Corp since they serve their pasta at Ciao. Although I can see why some reviewers saw their service as rude and self-​absorbed, my group was not rushed out even after our plates were taken away. One of our staffers was pretty friendly and even joked with us.