Mona Lisa Italian Foods

Favorite Italian Restaurant in San Diego. The décor and menu are nothing fancy, its just true Italian — flavors are amazing. I love to start with the side salad because they’re blue cheese dressing is the best ever. Usually we share an entrée because they are so large. We usually go for the spaghetti and add an order of meatballs. So basic, I know, but it is outstanding! I also love the Pesto alla Genovese and the Linguine al Pomodoro. The garlic bread that comes with the entrees is perfection. Pizza is also a good choice — they slice the white onion very thin — unique and tasty!
Seriously, do not even get me started on the Deli. Turkey Sausalito on a Torpedo Roll add avocado — you’re welcome. Grad a sandwich before you hit the beach, or a picnic in the park.
AND they have a parking lot in Little Italy — small, but we usually always get a spot.
Service is always efficient and friendly. I have never left disappointed with service or quality of food.

I love pizza. This is the best pizza I’ve found in San Diego. I invite you to enjoy the outstanding free pizza with tons of fresh cheese or however you order it. There antipasto salad is sooooo good! The guys in the kitchen are the BEST!!! So kind and friendly.

Love this place don’t let the location fool you. You just can’t get any better authentic Italian food anywhere else in San Diego. I’ve had the pizza, lasagna, and a few other things on the menu and I have never been disappointed. The portions are huge and reasonably priced. I’ve never had any issues with servers they were always very friendly. I did take off one star because the rest rooms could use a face-​lift.

I need to use my hands to properly express how good the lasagna and chicken parmigiana sandwich are…
I highly recommend both, and the service was friendly and fast.
They are open late, but the open sign was not lot, so suggest just walking on in and enjoying!

Came here on a Thursday night. Being in Little Italy parking is always a challenge especially free parking. This day however the parking gods were smiling on us as a car was backing out as soon as we got there. What luck! Worse case scenario when you are down in Little Italy; is use one of the many paid parking lots and hope there is a lot near where you want to go.
The seating in the restaurant is made up of smaller tables that could join together to accommodate bigger groups. We were nine that night so we had three tables put together. Everyone seemed cozy. Not super spacious but not cramped either.
What made this place for my wife and I were the antipasto salad and the pizza. The food was exactly what we wanted when we came here. The food was good. On the pizza, we got pepperoni, sausage and mushrooms. The ingredients along with the cheese melted in our mouth. Loved the crust. Chewy on top and crispy on the bottom. Very good food.
Eat here.

There are 2 entrances… enter through the right hand side one. I entered on the left and was right next to the kitchen. Anyway, I came in to pick up my food and upon first impression it looked dark and outdated. There was also an unpleasant smell at the door closest to the kitchen which smelled like urine to me. I hope I’m wrong. I got my food and couldn’t wait to walk out. I don’t think I’d ever choose to dine inside.
FOOD
I ordered the Grilled Chicken sandwich ($ 13.99). It was good and the chicken was moist. It only had a few ingredients in it, but I thought it was pretty tasty. I wouldn’t order it again for that price though. Instead I would go to Subway or something similar.
Overall, it’s an okay place, but not necessarily the type of place I’d rave about to others.

Don’t order a pizza for delivery… it’s been 2 hours and they still haven’t delivered. I’ve called twice and every time deliver is on it’s way…
Could be the best pizza I’ve ever had… but at this point I’ll never know and I’ll never order take out from this place again.

Good food here, nice casual atmosphere. I return now and then even though once the salad dressing they served me had gone bad. The staff is very accommodating.

Love this place. A must-​visit if you visit San Diego. I like all the little tasty knick knacks including salamis, pasta, chocolates, vegetables, pastries, etc.
Plus the deli is phenomenal. I go there number 8 sub. Employee told me it was their most popular sandwich and I can see why. Delicious. Yummy traditional Italian sandwich. The bread is a little on the tough side but I liked it. Prevented it from going soggy. I enjoyed the last half hours later.
And the sandwich was humungo! For 7 bucks you get your money’s worth.
I tried the restaurant here a long time ago. I remember liking it and that there was a lot off cheese. Nothing wrong with that. Haha.
What a gem of a place.

This place is hands down amazing!!! Real authentic food and great quality! I’ve literally had almost everything on the menu. Some of my favorites are, pepperoni pizza, white pizza, cheese ravioli, meat ravioli, philly cheese steak sandwich, omg too much to list! Exquisite wine choices. I go often with my family. The cooks are very friendly. My favorite waitress is Mary Ann! She’s so sweet and patient. I definitely recommend this place for good food that’s made of good, real, quality ingredients!

Avoid this one! First time I’ve written in about a place but this one I had to. So many things wrong on so many fronts. Start with a Lysol smell while you’re eating as the staff cleans up an hour before closing. Not my idea of a welcoming Italian ambience. Add to that glaring lights, hard seats, loud music and inattentive staff huddled in a corner, not to mention the ominous screens in the window and door that block your view inside or out, and the neon sign with only two letters lit tell the story. Maybe this was once a nice place but it is so outdated that even a decent pizza couldn’t redeem it for me. I grew up in this neighborhood and this is a sad outcome.

Great Italian Torpedo sandwich special for $ 8.95 can’t beat that.
It is a very quaint, yet elegant restaurant in a strip mall.
Never had a bad experience here but this review is strictly for the Torpedo special that is very hearty.

We LOVE this place — we go every Thursday! Tonight was our 73^rd visit. The pizza is great and we look forward to it all week! The very best part of going is the amazing service that we get from our favorite servers Ellen and Katelyn — they ROCK! We love the food and Ellen and Katelyn always make it a fun experience!

Don’t let the location fool you. Super clean and nicely decorated Italian restaurant. Portion sizes are more than enough for leftovers to enjoy later. Pizza was really good and had tons of mozzarella cheese. Lasagna was enough for two to share and had a great taste. Would definitely come back when I come into town. Servers are extremely nice and atmosphere is great for any date or family function.

This is my second time here. I got the gnocchi with pesto and I enjoyed it. The service was quick which was nice. We got a salad and it seemed pretty big for a side salad but no complaints here.

Mary Ann is very rude over the phone. Been a customer for 35 years and it is not a pleasure talking with her.

The hostess was friendly, but the food was so incredibly disappointing.
This is a nice, sit-​down Italian restaurant. How bad could the food be? Well, pretty bad.
I ordered the veal parmigiana, which is one of their specialties. The cut of veal was large, but it was bland and its texture was rubbery. I ate the cheese on top of it and threw the meat away.
The spaghetti was awful. The noodles were thicker than I have ever seen spaghetti. And the sauce was terrible. I can’t explain what exactly was wrong with it, but it was worse than store-​bought pasta sauce.
The vegetable soup was pretty good, but overall the meal was a waste of money.

Unfortunately in my area, there isn’t too many grab to go Italian places, there is only a select few. Even worse than that, most of them seem to be closed on Monday’s. Unilocal steered me towards Mona Lisa Italian Foods in Allied gardens on a Monday evening. From the pictures and reviews, I wasn’t really expecting much here, and I was right not to.
I ordered my food for takeaway and the person gave me a fifteen minute pick up time. After arriving in about fifteen minutes, my food still was not ready. I had to wait several minutes for them to finish making my food. The restaurant was quite small along with their parking lot, not a very big place. After finally grabbing my food, I off to home.
The side salad (
) I received from Mona Lisa’s was sub par in my opinion. The salad was full of lettuce and not enough vegetables, which is what I look forwards to in a salad. Also the kidney beans they added didn’t taste right. The salad was a large portion, but like I said earlier, most of the portion was simply romaine lettuce. In my picture, I removed most of the romaine lettuce, because its basically just filler. The Italian dressing they added on the side of my salad didn’t taste good either.
I ended up ordering the pasta combo meal. I went with the meat ravioli & spaghetti (
) with marinara sauce (they didn’t give me a choice for meat sauce). The pasta dish, even though I did grade it on a takeaway Italian scale, was very underwhelming. In my opinion, I’ve definitely had better tasting slop shop Italian pasta, the ravioli’s meat filling was very funky tasting and kinda me question if it was cooked all the way. The sauce left a lot to be desired, it wasn’t a very hearty sauce with lots of seasoning and flavor.
My experience with Mona Lisa has made me decide I won’t be any future visits back to this place, and instead I’ll head further down the road to Filippi’s.’

Thought we were visiting another location of the Mona Lisa’s downtown… turns out the owners are cousins, so it’s not the same ownership or menu. Let’s just say they must be very, very, very DISTANT relatives.

Non va bene! Pizza was disappointing. VERY greasy. The crust wasn’t an even thickness– pieces were soggy and very thin in parts, thicker in others. The sauce might have contributed in the wetness, as it was also watery. The good news is, one piece was plenty for dinner. You did not want any more. The mushrooms were diced, very small pieces sparsely sprinkled over it. It felt cheap.
Not even my kids liked it, and they like way more inexpensive pizza. I don’t know if my pizza was a one-​off and it’s usually better, but I won’t take the gamble again. Honestly, I’d pick Little Cesar’s across the street before I picked this place again for pizza.
Service was fine. It was take-​out I pre-​ordered over the phone, at a totally not-​busy time, and the people inside were friendly and quick.