Arpino Trattoria

This hidden gem was one of the best Italian restaurants that I have experienced in Pittsburgh. From the service to the food, the experience was top notch. Our waitress was energetic, intelligent and responsive. My girlfriend got the giglio gamberetto pomodoro which, just means giant tiger shrimp nestled in huge pasta twists with a light marinara… Mmmmmm heaven. I got the tagliolini bolognese which… Again to the non Italian civilian means: narrow fettuccini noodles in the most delicious meat sauce you have ever tasted. Oh god I practically licked the bowl. I felt overly satisfied after indulging in this wonderful dinner. Will definitely come back again and again…

Overall experience was just okay on my first time dining here. We came for dinner, and it caught me by surprise that there were no specials. The bread was a little disappointing, and I strongly suggest to Arpino: please offer balsamic vinegar to go with the olive oil. Mediocre bread with plain olive oil is not great. Wine: this place is BYOB, so we brought a bottle of red. Corkage fee is reasonable at $ 5, but I found it strange that the person who popped the cork (not our waitress) did not even offer to pour it? Just opened the bottle and set it back down on the table. ?? I realize some patrons prefer to pour their own, but at least make an attempt/​offer. This is what we pay for when you charge the corkage fee (and when we figure out how much to tip you): open AND serve the wine. I had a cup of wedding soup with my meal, and was not impressed, bland and had the tiniest pasta I have ever seen in this type of soup. My entrée was okay, odd triangular-​shaped penne with eggplant and other vegetables cut up in small squares, in a pink sauce. Hmm. The sauce was pretty good and pasta was al dente. Big complaint about the Parmesan cheese though, which was never offered and I had to ask for it. The waitress brought out a small bowl and set it down on the table; and it was basically Kraft grated Parmesan, the type that comes in the green canister at the supermarket. If I am paying close to $ 100 for dinner (three people), and having to bring my own wine, there had better be higher quality than this — at an Italian reataurant. The pre-​grated cheese needs to go. Either a higher quality shredded cheese or better yet, shredded fresh at the table onto your guest’s entrée is the way to go. We shared tiramisu for dessert, which was really good, and I would (maybe) go back just for that.

Met several girlfriends for dinner here. A great little Italian B.Y.O.B located in Manor Oak strip mall near the intersection of Cochran and Greentree Road. Authentic, Homemade Italian Cuisine. You can definitely tell they use fresh ingredients in their dishes. We had the rice balls appetizers, Yummy!!! I had the special, Sword Fish over a bed of steamed spinach, melt in your mouth wonderful (and came with a salad dressed in House Italian, very tasty.) One ordered veal, cooked to perfection. Others got Penne vodka sauce over homemade noodles. Noodles were homemade and cooked just right, vodka sauce was divine. Be sure to check out the dessert menu as well. Nothing on the menu is bad, you will LOVE everything!

We celebrated my moms birthday at Arpino tonight and it was the first night for their new menu. Everything was FANTASTIC! The pasta is homemade, the sauce is drinkable, and everything was cooked perfectly. I can’t wait to come back!

Ratings based on 3 primary aspects: food, ambience and service.
Food is not exceptional… it’s good italian food made with fresh ingedients… if its just for food, I will give a 3.5. I ordered the restaurant week special 3 course meal and my wife ordered from the menu: zucchini
Ambiance…very small place and everyone is loud… so not good or bad… it is what it is… I like that… my wife doesn’t that much.
Service…Now here is where I believe things make a lot of difference… when serving dessert… they replaced the item on the pre-​fixed menu with something else and didn’t bother to tell us in advance… they assumed that we won’t notice… When we asked, the server apologized and told us that how chef wants it… we didn’t create a fuss about it… but selling by cheating your customer won’t take you anywhere…
Will avoid… IL Burloni is a much better Italian place in the same vicinity

The service was wonderful-​very attentive. The calamari, a dish that is often a tell-​tale sign for me, was perfect. Loved the house salad and the eggplant rolletini.

As soon as my friends and I walked in, we could smell cigarette smoke. It was strong, pervasive, and ruined our meal.
When the waiter asked me about the side salad that was included with my entrée, he asked if I wanted blue cheese or Romano, implying the cheese was part of the salad. When I asked what the «open food» charge was on the check, I was told it was for the Romano. Meanwhile, my friends asked for Caesar salads instead of the side salad, but weren’t told this meant paying an extra $ 7. My friend told the waiter that all these extra prices were misleading; he said we weren’t the first to complain. Then why hasn’t anything changed?
I ordered the penne vodka. The sauce was great, but the pasta was chewy/​tough. The Italian bread was nothing special.
My friends and I had the same assessment of the restaurant and agreed that we won’t be back.

We have dined at Arpino many times since they opened. In general it is our kind of restaurant… Small, intimate, and BYOB with friendly owners who are engaged with their clientele.
Especially appealing is the outdoor area in the courtyard at Manor Oak shops. It is quiet and secluded with white lights strung on the trees giving it a magical atmosphere.
The owners are very friendly and always make a point to stop by the table to say hello.
We have tried many of the items on the menu with a general assessment of good but not really memorable. Fortunately the outdoor atmosphere in the summer makes it worth going.

A small place that packed with big flavor. They use locally homemade pasta this is excellent. So much so that they sold me on buying it from the pasta maker for home use on holidays (a little too pricey to make it every week… DeCecco is just fine for daily use…). Everything on the menu is excellent. They have seasonal ravioli which are delicious. And, their pesto has to be the best I ever tasted… fresh and vibrant. Perfection! But, I have to say that their eggplant rollatini is to die for. Hands down one of the best things I ever tasted. Next time I go, I am going to carry a sign that implores them to put Polenta on their menu. I can only imagine how wonderful they would make it! Then they will have all of my favorites on their menu! It’s a BYOB and can get very crowded at dinner so they have to put a cap on how long you stay at your table – which could be a turn-​off for some folks. So, we solve that problem by going for lunches when we can! The owner is a really nice guy and always makes the time to stop at the table to chat. So glad we found this hidden gem!!!

Above average food. But nothing exciting. Atmosphere is what makes this place special.
Tucked in a small plaza its a nice spot for a weekday eve dinner. Not sure how the weekend eve are
Its byob but $ 5 per bottle corking fee. But they do have a wine chiller so can chill your bottle of wine by the time dinner arrives. Also a pa wine and spirits store is in the next Plaza over.
Meatball was bland. The sauce made up for it. Also as others have said that they ask you about cheese add on options but do not mention if it’s an upcharge. Didn’t order any cheese toppings. So not sure if they charge or how much.
Chicken cutlets was good and cooked just right seasoned steak was done as requested with some pink… 2 meals and $ 10 corking and meatball adder was $ 50 without tip.

BEST vodka sauce ever, hands down. Biggest con, we got salads with our dinner and was asked what cheese we wanted so we answered. When we got the bill we were charged $ 5 for the cheese and weren’t even told prior to choosing a cheese that it was an up charge! I would have never gotten cheese if I had to pay $ 5 for it. The portion size is small and the prices are spiked. We just ended up buying the vodka sauce and making it at home.

I have mixed feelings about Arpino’s. My husband & I ate there for the first time a couple weeks ago. We started with the rice balls appetizer. It was so so. Not bad but not really that good (rice seemed undercooked), not worth ordering a second time. A salad came with our entrée order. The salad was basic but very good. I ordered the homemade cheese ravioli & my husband ordered the pesto pasta. I was not a fan of the ravioli. The marinara sauce was pretty basic, nothing special & the ravioli I thought was undercooked the shells were too tough. I think the ravioli shells should be soft almost melt in your mouth, these shells were tough almost too hard to cut with your fork. I took my leftovers home & when I reheated them the next day they were a little bit better & softer. So I think they have the right idea but just need to cook them longer. My husband on the other hand loved his pesto pasta. He was completely satisfied with it.
I definitely want to give Arpino a second chance. There were a couple other entrees on the menu that sounded pretty good that I would like to try. It may have just of been an off night for the pasta I ordered.
Just a heads up Arpino is a really small restaurant & reservations are recommended. I did not realize that beforehand. We just walked in & was lucky they had 1 open table. But next time will make reservations just in case, don’t want to have to wait very long.
Honestly if it wasn’t for my husband’s meal I would have given them 2 stars because I was not at all impressed with the items I ate but my husband really really liked his pesto pasta. So I’m gonna give them a second chance & order something different next time.

Super cozy place that I was pleased to see. There’s not a lot of space but it’s intimate and byob. Ordered the rice balls as an appetizer and they were pretty disappointing. The rice was undercooked and they had 1 small ball of cheese inside that wasn’t even melted :(dinner came with salad which was good. We ordered ravioli and a chicken dish with mushrooms & prosciutto, both were very good! Big portions but nothing was spectacular, just good.

I like it. I’ve only been once, but it was a good experience.
The wedding soup is excellent. It is homemade, with big chunks of good stuff it in. So don’t miss it.
My house salad was a fresh, basic, house salad. Good enough.
My penne vodka was really good. The noodles were triangular in cross-​section and were clearly home-​made. It’s the chewy texture that makes them great. The sauce was thick and adhered well to the pasta. Very tasty! The portion was on the small side, but it was the lunch portion, and was very reasonably priced. Table bread is fresh, italian bread.
Overall, a great, little, restaurant. I’ll go again.

I was here for lunch. To start: Brittany was my server and she made my dining experience quite enjoyable. If I were eating Luma based solely on her service, she would receive all of the stars. Brittany is very professional and very sweet. I started with the Moroccan/​Couscous soup. It was flavorful. I enjoyed it. I wasnt overwhelmed, however I would certainly have it again. The Grilled Romaine BLT was good after I had let it sit for a while. I’m not a fan of salads that are ice cold (as if they were pre-​made and placed in the refrigerator.) All the ingredients were a bit too chilled for my liking. The salad turned out to be good. I also had the Portobello Caprese Sandwich. It was good. Overall, I had an enjoyable experience. Prices are a bit high for lunch, but other than that, all is good. I would not consider Luma to be one of my favorite places, but I’ll certainly be back for dinner.

I had eaten here a number of times and decided to try their NY Strip steak (cost of $ 20.00). The steak was super thin and unappetizing and I had to ask for a steak knife. This is the kind of steak that you might expect in a steak salad, but you would not want to eat it by itself. I was very disappointed in the quality of the steak which seemed to be very cheap. The steak was served on a bare plate except for an arugula salad. This is puzzling because the steak came with a side-​salad before it was served — so you get a «double salad.» When I asked the waitress about the «double salad» she very matter-​of-​factly told me the arugula was merely a decoration. Maybe I am guilty of assuming that Arpinos was good for more than just pasta. I was impressed with their pasta generally but the steak appears to be something they haven’t mastered. My comment would be take it off the menu.
Other comment: we had a larger party and made the reservation for 6:30 pm after requesting 6pm and being told that time wasn’t available. At 6pm my wife received two phone calls from Arpino’s saying «Where are you? We though you would be here at 6pm.» Their operation seems a bit disorganized.

Arpino Trattoria… What to say.
Living in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, I had never heard of it in my life. I researched places close to my office, and thought, let’s go!
It is in a strip mall kind of, very far off of the main road past the parking lot so extremely difficult to see (not likely to be stumbled upon). Parking is free!
We came a friday afternoon for lunch, and it filled up. We sat at one of the outdoor tables and it was absolutely lovely.
BYOB BYOB BYOB BYOB! (Personally, BYOB’s are always a bonus. So good!)
SO – BYOB!
Every single dish that we had was phenomenal. Our waiter was fine, he was quite slow, but we were in a slow mood which was nice. I highly recommend this place for a lunch or a casual, long dinner.
Extremely reasonable prices and quite generous portions, in addition to high quality ingredients.
Allow Arpino to bless you. Bless yourself with your own beverages. Bless us all.

Let’s start with… they are trying. I made a reservation for 7pm, 2 people. My son decided to join us so I called and asked to add a third and they could not accommodate us. No big deal since it was an hour before our reservation so I figured it was a long shot anyway. But to my surprise they called me back 5 minutes later and told me they had a cancellation so they could take the three of us. We ordered the stuffed hot peppers to start. The sauce was good, the peppers were small but tasty. My wife ordered the eggplant rollatini, son ordered the special cheese tortellini and I ordered the linguini with clam sauce. The were all average at best. A step above OG and the other Italian places that focus on volume not quality. I am amazed this place finishes 3^rd in the Pittsburgh magazine readers poll. In summary, good not great, but they are trying.

My wife and I went with some friends here last night based on another friend’s recommendation. The first thing you notice, before you even get inside, is how out-​of-​the-​way and obscured the place is in its back-​of-​the-​very-​back-​of-​the-​lot shopping center. You really do have to want to find it.
The service was quick, the atmosphere was cozy, and our waiter (Regis) was very nice. The food was good, but not great. We ordered some rice balls with marinara sauce that were… good. Since rice isn’t exactly the boldest tasting food, the sauce needed to stand out. It was — say it with me — good. Not nearly flavorful enough. I then ordered penne with hot sausage fra diavolo. The pasta was made from scratch, very nice, but it was a bit too heavy for my liking. The hot sausage was on the bland side, and the sauce, while (again) good, was too broth-​like.
A pleasant experience, and I wish them well, but unless the food improves it won’t be a place I go to very often.

I had the pleasure of eating dinner here this past weekend with a group of six. As I had never been to Arpino before, I was surprised by how the small the restaurant was. Even though it was small it was still nicely lit and tastefully decorated. Upon arriving at our reservation time we were told that our table was not yet ready and were sent to the bar next door with a note from the owner to give us free drinks. It seemed odd but I enjoyed the fact that it was creative solution with a good result.
Upon returning to the restaurant I proceeded to order the Linguine Pescatore. Prior to dinner they served a bread and oil which ended up being a good thing as our dinners would take about 45 minutes to get to our table after ordering. We also received our side salads at some point early on in that time. Whenever my dinner finally was served I thoroughly enjoyed it as the pasta was good with the fair amount of seafood which paired nicely with the saltiness of the capers. I also was able to taste the penne vodka which was exceptional.
The bottom line for me is that this was a nice little BYOB Italian restaurant that I would like to eat at again.