Mateo’s Cucina Italiana

I went here on a quiet week night with my family. the food and prices were excellent — it’s a great spot for a casual dinner! I’d like to return sometime soon with a bottle of wine!

Charming, quaint, and simple.
The pasta fagioli is wonderful and the arancini balls (fried risotto balls) are great. The marina is light and flavorful and the owner is engaging. Prices are fair.
However, it has a limited menu and if anyone in your party has a gluten allergy skip this place entirely or they will end up with a basic salad and not other options.
I think it is BYOB.

Nothing was terribly wrong with the food, but the service really left a bad taste in my mouth.
Upon walking in, we waited for a few minutes at the door. Left ungreeted, we helped ourselves to a table near the windows and waited perhaps up to ten minutes for our menus. No hello’s, no let me tell you about the specials, nothing. We ordered minestrone soup, gnocchi with a meatball (which we were charged for, but never received) and chicken parmesan.
I do not mind when service is slow, but dang, here you have to ask for everything. When our meals arrived, we had to ask for silverware and was brought two forks. Gee, thanks for the forks, but how about a knife to cut the chicken and a napkin? So we had to ask for those separately. The meal was supposed to include bread (which we never received without explanation). Later we overheard the waitress tell another table that they were out; however, a table that arrived when we were finishing up seemed to be a friend of the proprietors and DID receive bread. I am not the type to get all worked up about some bread and it’s expected that small restaurants will run out of things, but that burned.
We had to ask for boxes and the bill as well and found that we were charged for the meatball that we never got (and were never checked on to inquire about) and no concessions were made for the missing bread. Frustrated, we just left cash and got out of there.
Nothing was wrong with the food. It wasn’t better than anything I could have made at home, so perhaps you could get it as take out if you don’t want to cook. Because we had a lot of time to observe what was going on in the restaurant in our long waits for menus, boxes and the bill and my time in college as a server, it appeared like the waitress was never trained properly and spent time going to the back for each table’s request instead of multitasking by addressing the needs of multiple tables on each trip back into the kitchen and anticipating diner’s needs for the basic components of restaurant service.
I hate giving a little local place a bad review, but I just don’t think we could go back there after having such a lackluster experience. I’d suggest to skip Mateo’s and instead go for the Greek place down the street where you can get the same small family restaurant feel without the bad taste in your mouth about the service.

have tried the food here a few times (old location and current) and am just not impressed and it’s clear that they have lot of Brookline locals doing their p.r. /​promotions for them. People that don’t get out of the yinzery confines of Brookline much, i’m guessing. I see a couple praising reviews of it and I wish I could agree and wish i’d had whatever food they did but, shrug, just another old school /​old-​boy Pittsburgh Italian-​ish eatery. (real Italian is better .)

Have heard some raves about this little Pasta and Panino place. Final was able to give it a try. The raves were correct. A great little family style Italian restaurant that is not expensive with good food.
A small menu but a half dozen specials on a little chalk board, that the Chef moved so we could read the specials. Later the waitress, who was great, moved it so others could read it. Some regulars came in and everyone got hugs!
Was really thinking about the stuffed banana peppers or the lasagna, that our waitress said is one or her favorites. Order a special of the day of linguine con shrimp in red sauce. The red sauce was very good, nice flavors, and the shrimp was cooked perfectly. Was told the meat balls were good, but did not get a chance to taste because they disappeared so fast.
During our meal, the Chef came over to check on us and see how the meal was. Later he came back just to chat for a minute or so.
Noticed on the menu there are few things in larger quantities to take home including red sauce and beans & greens, Next time I’m making spaghetti, I may just buy Mateo’s sauce instead of making my own.
BYOB.

The dining area in this restaurant is small, but the food is really good. I willl be coming back again! Just a FYI they are a BYOB establishment.

I have nothing bad to say about this place. The food is amazing (basically home-​cooked italian) and the entire family is delightful. I have been lucky to semi get to know the family, after they so graciously shut down the restaurant to serve my whole birthday party, and they are wonderful people.
This is a small, casual, BYOB restaurant deserving of any large-​scale accolades in the city. I recommend this place time, and time again.

Great family owned Italian restaurant. Don’t expect much from the décor. Small and only has 8 tables. The food is all homemade and incredible. Southern Italy style cooking. The restaurant is BYOB, which is easy because there is a Wine and Spirits store right next door. One of the few restaurants in Pittsburgh that serve TRIPE. Bonus points for that.

We live around the corner and eat here at least once a week. Many locals get take-​out. We love the atmostphere, the owners and that it’s BYOB. The marinara sauce is awesome! I love the greens and beans and have been ordering the eggplant parm too much! Our daughter (7) always gets the wedding soup and something with a meatball. My husband loves the pizza. I’ve never had anything here I didn’t like. It’s great to have a fantastic restaurant in our neighborhood. Brookline keeps getting better.

I was back in Pittsburgh after being on vacation as was the family that owns Mateo’s! After being disappointed a couple of weeks back to find a sign on the window informing me that restaurant owners need time off too (who knew?!), I was happy to see Mateo’s bright welcoming lightson. My wonderfully sweet (and missed… ok enough I know) boyfriend were seated and greeted by the friendly staff inside. Besides a couple of what seemed regulars we were the only other customers inside.
We started our meal with zucchini pancakes and bruschetta. Pancakes were great but a tad too salty. My boyfriend usually steers clear of all things green but enjoyed these very much. The bruschetta was pretty standard. Good but nothing amazing (perhaps an upgrade of the bread would help). My meal consisted of mushroom pizza and a cup of green and beans. I liked both… again nothing really stand out but consistently good. My boyfriend helped with pizza and had a side of penne. We left full and happy. The walk home was welcomed after the meal and with such a beautiful night in Pittsburgh hard to resist.
Not sure about returning to Mateo’s…but I do want to try their namesake panini!

Note: This used to be down the street a little ways, but they’ve since moved up, so keep your eyes peeled.
Me and my FBI date were on the hunt for some Italian fare. I had heard of this place and just had to take her there. I planned on getting pizza, but I had some the night before, so…
I ended up with the Stuffed Banana Peppers with a side of penne pasta.
The gal we talked to sez everyone plans on getting pizza until they see the menu. The old man sez to us in his wonderful thick accent, «You can get pizza anywhere, man.»
These peppers were «atomico» and were gotten from the Mexican grocer up the street.
Hey, spicy foods are good for ya. They clean ya out. You could even see the seeds. The filling was melt-​on-​the-​tongue heaven. The mozzarella cheese that coated it was fresh and helped cut the heat a little. Gooey, creamy, authentic, frozen and vacuum sealed this was not.
The penne pasta was perfectly al dente (the terms I have learned from watching cooking shows since I was a lad), and the sauce that coated it and the banana peppers was transcendent. I also enjoyed my house salad also with its tangy vinaigrette.
I forget what my date got, but again she’s FBI and left happy.
They even gave each of us a cookie to finish our meal. It was one of those floured, jelly-​filled, not-​overly-​sweet, flower-​shaped thingamabobs that tasted fresh baked, therefore pushing it into the realm of divinity.
Full of character and characters alike, at Mateo’s this evening, we met a gent who claimed to be the publisher of the country’s oldest and largest Italian-​American newspaper.
They even thought I was Italian at first! Me, the Polish, Irish, German, Hungarian mutt.
But as our waitress said with a wave of her hand, «If ya know a lot of Italians, yer Italian.»
Works for me.
Mateo’s reminds me of another Italian eatery from Brookline’s storied past called PV’s. It was family-​run, and within 5 minutes, the waitress, cook or whoever would butt into your conversation.
And you don’t mind at all. In fact, if you’re of the ‘Burgh, you come to expect and welcome it. The people at PV’s (great food, greatly missed) would sit down with ya. And you loved it! If they didn’t they were either really busy or something was up!
Hey, go to a Shadyside restaurant if you want aloof service.
Me? I want to feel like family, and I did at Mateo’s. From debating the best pizza places (finally I meet someone, Italian herself of course, who also thinks Fiori’s is overrated) to the merits of fresh mozzarella and delivery vs. eat-​in, it seemed as if I was at home or in someone’s kitchen.
We almost went in the wrong car afterwards. The one gal from Mateo’s yelled over, «Did ya have too much ta drink? Eeenie, meeenie, minie, mo?»
That’s Pittsburgh. We were doubled o’er. Man, what fun you can have in your own neighborhood.