Lido’s Italian Restaurant

I love a real old school restaurant. You feel like family when you are here. And their house salad is worth the trip…

This is a difficult review for me to write because I am a supporter of small local businesses in the Orlando area, especially ones that have been around for a long time, I. e beefy king, hot dog heaven, Linda’s la Catina. This review serves as an alert to the owners/​managers of this restaurant and as a warning to other Orlando residents.
November 18, 2015 marked my fourth visit to the restaurant in five years. I have always enjoyed going to lidos for their small, quiet atmosphere and authentic Italain food.
I am extremely disappointed in my experience this evening based on the fact I had to wait over an hour for my meal in addition to poor service. I arrived with my boyfriend at 6:35 and was greeted by a hostess asking «if I knew what I wanted to drink» before we even dat down. While this is minor, the waitress did not offer any wines or speciality drinks. We also quickly ordered two appetizers and a meal to go for later for a family member. Our entrees were ordered by 7:15.
By 8:00, my boyfriend and I realized that the other tables in the restaurant (9 in total) did not have food on their tables either. Soon there after, I observed other tables starting to complain and get up from their tables to ask where their food was. From 7:15 — 8:10 we were never notified that the kitchen was backed up or that there was going to be a delay in our meal. I even noticed the hostess texting and lounging around while all the guests were sitting around with no food. By 8:15, I got from the table to explain to someone that I was ready to leave and that I wanted to pay for what I consumed. I was told by the waitress that «there was nothing so could do» and the kitchen only had one person in it.
The solution to this madness was to box up my meal and provide a 10% discount. It’s an extreme shame that I had to eat my meal out of a tin foil bowl for a pretty high price (75 $) at home. Though I love supporting small businesses, you would be better served at Olive Garden.
Next time I will spend the same amount of money at a place like Houstons, Flemmings, or Linda’s la Catina

As many other Unilocalers have said, this is your quintessential cozy Italian restaurant. The food is delicious and service is great. Only thing that they could improve on is their wine list. But, you can bring your own bottle if you want! Their spaghetti and meatballs are my favorite. If you like Italian, you’ll love Lido’s.

Went there for lunch and it wasn’t too bad. Had the spinach and mushroom lasagna. It was okay. I was disappointed that there wasn’t more spinach and mushrooms. Too much cheese. The salad was not the type of salad that I like — that wasn’t their fault. It was a combo of green and pasta salad. Prices were reasonable.
Went for dinner several days later. UGH! The service was S-​L-​O-​W and the food was completely flavorless and lackluster and WHOA $$$$!!! We waited so long to order, we opted to skip appetizers and order entrees. The breadsticks were good, but that was it. The salad was okay, different from lunch — green salad with Italian dressing. I ordered the chicken Florentine with capers (additional .50, by the way). The description of the dish sounded like a piccata with spinach. My husband ordered chicken alfredo and my daughter ordered the caesar salad.
When the server finally delivered my food, I was like WTH!!! Two small lily white (boiled?) chicken pieces on some spinach, swimming in ‘sauce’ with about a tablespoon of capers tossed on it. The chicken was not breaded, which doesn’t bother me, but seriously, there was zero color on it to make it slightly appealing. The ‘sauce’ seemed like it may have been the cooking liquid from the spinach, no flavor, no seasoning. The only thing that tasted like anything at all were the capers. Husband’s alfredo was extremely boring and not seasoned. The portions, for the prices were small, as well! I think mine was $ 15 or $ 16 bucks? Seriously?
My daughter, a teenager who eats crap food all the time, COULDN’T eat her salad. She said that the lettuce was fibrous and hard to chew and she had me try the dressing. It was totally vinegary, not cheesy or lemony or garlicy like a caesar should be. What a waste of time. My other two kids’ food isn’t even worth mentioning.
We had a bottle of wine that was about $ 30… But our total came to $ 100!!! SOOOOOOO LAME!!! I would give only one star, but the lunch experience wasn’t totally awful. This food is, sorry people, old person food, which would also explain why the patrons in there were ancient. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME. So disappointed that Unilocal would give this place a solid 4 stars.

Every time I come here I humor myself into believing that I’ll order something different but, every time I am enticed back into ordering the pan fried spaghetti.
The staff is friendly but they always seem to be either surprised by, or unprepared for, multiple tables of guests. Still, the food is good and the atmosphere, although a bit dated, is strangely comforting. It is nice to see a neighborhood, non-​chain, restaurant have the longevity that this one has had. The locals can’t be wrong.

My wife and I arrived at 7pm sharp. We waited for about 5 minutes before the young hostess acknowledged us. Her attitude made it very clear that she did not want to be there.
There was a large group seated along the back wall of the resraurant, celebrating a birthday, so I anticipated there being some delay, but we didn’t receive our food until 8:13pm. An hour-​long wait for some lackluster mushy, flat, soggy chicken parmesan devoid of flavor. I took 2 bites and pushed it aside, proceeding to eat my spaghetti while waiting for our waitress.
Unfortunately, after waiting yet another 10 – 15 minutes, my hunger got the best of me and I decided to cover it in Parmesan cheese, just to make it palettable. When our waitress finally arrived, I asked her if the dish is made fresh, or if it was frozen, because it was horrible. Rather than attempt to rectify the situation by offering to have it remade, or to bring out something else, she apologized and walked away.
I believe that as a locally-​owned restaurant, coupled with the growing «buy local, eat local» movement, that restaurants like Lido’s should be held to a higher standard, because they have more to prove, and both more to gain, and lose. Had we gone to Olive Garden, I would have known what to expect, and their meals are frozen!
We finally got our check, but sat there, waiting for it to be picked up. After 10 more minutes, we paid in cash and walked out — something we should have done an hour earlier. Leaving a 10% tip was being generous. We won’t be back.
–1 star for the wait
–1 star for the hostess’ pathetic attitude
–1 star for the food quality
–5 stars for not making any attempt whatsoever to address the food quality issue.