Gabriella’s Italian Grill & Pizzeria

this place is really cool and the pizza Is to die for and the service is really good but the place is really confusing and small

My family and I are here on vacation and we decided to come here for our first dinner on the island. We wanted to try Gabriella’s because of the reviews, and we weren’t disappointed.
We walked into the busy restaurant and were seated immediately. We were then greeted by our waiter who was very friendly, and offered immediately to answer any questions we had about the restaurant or menu.
Our meal was overall pleasant. At the beginning we were given a family style salad and bread basket which was good, but the salad was a bit overdressed. Our meals then came out quickly and correctly. I got the Caesar salad with shrimp which was good, and the shrimp were cooked well. My brothers got the pepperoni pizza and the chicken Alfredo which they both said was good, but the Alfredo was lacking a bit on sauce. My mom ordered a sausage soup which was recommended by the waiter which she was pleasantly surprised by. The food was overall very good, and the portions gave us plenty to take with us. We ended the meal with a slice of cheesecake and chocolate cake which were both baked very well and both very rich.
We all enjoyed our time and meals at Gabriella’s.

The pizza was amazing! Super fresh and the cheese nice and hot.
Probably one of the best tasting pizza ever!
Waiter was attentive and friendly, his name is James!
Definitely recommend this place. The food is amazing!
Will for sure be back next time we come to SPI!

Food and atmosphere is amazing. Starting with the garlic bread and dipping sauce (mixture of olive oil, garlic, and some amazing fresh herbs) to the salad to the amazing entrees. We ordered the Sopranos pizza and it was amazing! My family ordered the manicotti and tortellini and it was all handmade and tasted wonderful. Great experience!

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About last night… House Special: Authentic Manicotti. If my mouth could talk… Oh wait it can. Every bite of this dish melted in my mouth and even though I was full from the manicotti and a bottle of wine, I still wanted more. My family all enjoyed different dishes including pizza. I tasted everything at the table because I believe in sharing. Everything at Gabriellas was perfect. I only wish I had room for dessert. #manicotti #Italion #southpadreisland #texas #foodporn #ricotta #pasta #cheese #summersixteen

My recommendation is you can find something better. It isn’t awful, but it isn’t 4 stars worthy either. It’s just eh. That’s the best way to describe it.
We had the toasted ravioli. It was pretty ok.
The salad that comes with the meal is coated in olive oil. I like olive oil and seasoning on my salad, but it was a bit much. Too much. The «garlic» bread they serve barely has any garlic and it is served with a balsamic vinegarette and olive oil which is mainly balsamic.
For dinner, I order the manicotti. It was pretty bad. The filling for manicotti should be creamy. This one as solid and had a gross texture. I don’t know how else to describe it. My husband and son had the rat pack pizza. It was decent. A lot of cheese. The chicken pizza (part of the rat pack, 4 different toppings) was dry and bland.
It’s a bit pricey, food is mediocre. But this seems to be my experience with Unilocal recommendations at south padre island. So proceed with caution. Again not horrible but not wonderful, just eh.

They used to be a solid 5 out of 5 but they have lost valuable crew members. Food isn’t what it used to be.

Service was terrible. We were not greeted for 7 minutes. We had to request silverware from our server as we were given one set only (there was 4 of us). I asked my waitress for asparagus instead of spaghetti on my dish, and she said there was no substitutions allowed. I had to talk to the manager at the host stand to make the substitution possible. Then after agreeing to make «an exception» he rudely said, «just sit back down.»
The chicken in my chicken Parmesan was unpleasant, as every bite was moist and soggy from the marinara. I understand the marinara has water in it, but saucing the chicken should be done at the very end, to maintain crispness of the chicken.
The spinach and artichoke dip is stopping me from dropping this review to 1. It was delicious and had plenty of spinach (rather than just cheese) per bite.
At the very end of our meal we were not offered dessert. Usually at other restaurants this does not bother me, but I have seen how the servers are required to bring a dessert showcase at the end of every meal.
All in all, a lot of corners were cut at this location. Service from wait staff and management was not good at all. Food ranged from delicious, to mediocore, to soggy. I will more than likely try the Russo’s down the street next visit to south padre.

Oh… my…lord. How is this place even in business???
We were on the island for a business trip and had eaten wonderful food while we were there. On our last night we decided to try this place because of the Unilocal reviews. What ensued was nothing short of one of the most horrific Italian restaurant experiences I have ever had.
I’ll start off by saying that I come from an Italian family. We know how to cook things wonderfully and avoid trashy places like Olive Garden. This restaurant is located in a little strip mall near the beach. The interior is very nice, I will give them that much. It’s almost like being in a little Italian alley. It is a small restaurant, so expect wait times.
We were soon greeted by our server who shall not be named. I was happy to see that they had Birra Moretti on the menu so I decided to get one. It was the best part of the evening.
As an appetizer we decided to try the Fried Portabella Mushrooms. They sounded promising. Soon we were presented with a cheap funnel filled with the mushroom pieces. A gargonzola dipping sauce came with the dish. To describe the dish, they have taken the mushroom caps and sliced them, battered heavily, and then fried them. The description on the menu does not fully describe how they defile them. The taste is absolutely awful. It tastes how I would imagine wet chalk would taste like. I love mushrooms. These were the Down syndrome mushrooms. The breading is way too much and adds a level of gummy flavorlessness. The mushroom itself has absorbed much of this sour breading. The gargonzola sauce was equally foul. The waiter was no where to be seen, so we waited… and waited… and then he finally returned with our salad. We explained how bad it was and he apologized. He offered to replace it with something else. We elected to try the Spinach and Artichoke Dip.
We started on the salad. It has I believe a Water Dressing? It comes with a dressing on it, but it looks and tastes like water. Some of the lettuce was a bit soggy. This comes with a little plate with Spanish olives from a jar (I mean… why serve ITALIAN olives in an ITALIAN restaurant, eh?), peppercinis, and Gouda cheese (a Dutch cheese in an Italian restaurant, seriously???). Soon the second appetizer came out and it was almost as bad as the first. It was more of a soup than a dip. It was very funny and would not stay on the overly salted flat bread that it was served with. Fail.
As for the entrees, I ordered the veal Marsala and my friend ordered the chicken Marsala. We both love Marsala, but as the meal progressed we became fearful of what happen to this wonderful dish. After all of the nonsense was over, we finally got to the main course. As the dish was set in front of me, my eyes grew in terror. The dish was COVERED with green onions. Who in Gods name puts green onions on Marsala? This was disgusting. Absolutely gross. The flavor of the sauce was overly sweet and it tasted like they put artificial sweetener in it. I had to scrape all of it off of the veal. I felt bad for that baby cow. It would have been better off dead on the side of the road. Once I scared off all of that foul tar like sauce, I seasoned the veal with a little salt and pepper and it wasn’t too bad. Had to prepare it myself I guess. This dish comes with whipped potatoes. These actually were not too bad… UNTIL…as we were eating them there was a Big Crunch. As we sifted through the potatoes we started finding jalapeño slices?!? Why are there jalapeños in this restaurant??? And why are they in the potatoes?
We had enough. On top of that, the waiter did not come by for the entire meal. We had to flag down someone else to ask for the manager. About 10 minutes later, an older man reeking of alcohol and cigarettes appeared and introduced himself as the manager. No wonder this place is crap! He apologized about the food and did not know what was going on. Probably too busy drinking and smoking. After all that had happened, he said the best he could do was take half off the bill. I didn’t expect that they do anything with the bill, but don’t you think with basically an inedible dining experience that they would just take everything off the bill? When he asked if there was anything that he could do to fix things, I honestly wanted to say «CLOSE YOUR DOORS AND NEVER, EVER OPEN THEM AGAIN».
Oh, and get this, the whole time we were eating, this fat tourist at the table next to us was raving very loudly about how this was the best italia he had ever had and that he was really digging this place. This is what is wrong with society. They are trained to eat crap food. I really wish I could give this sad excuse for a restaurant negative stars. Please pray to the lord that the health department shuts them down for imitating Italian food.

My favorite restaurant on the island. It has a great atmosphere, the food is excellent (portions are ginormous so prepare to share), and a really nice wine and craft beer list. They have a big range of excellent craft beers on draft that you will need some time to study. Good selection of wines, with nice Italian selections.
Being Italian, pizza and pasta are the favorites, though I go for the seafood and have never been disappointed. Service is fun and friendly.
Only quibble is you sometimes have to wait a loooooong time as it is justifiably popular. Grab a beer in the upstairs waiting room and chill. You’re on island time.

This was our second time here and the experience was tremendously greater than before thanks to probably the best waiter I’ve ever had the pleasure of dining with. Jesse knows the menu inside and out. With picky older kids and a wife who couldn’t decide, Jesse helped them make great dinner selections. Seriously, I don’t pour praise for nothing but a good dining experience is a combo of food and service: both incredible tonight. If we get back, we hope Jesse is still here.

We were in South Padre for Memorial Day weekend. We wanted to find a place to eat within walking distance from our hotel that we could take my 13yo step-​son to, have some drinks and catch the NBA game that night. After being turned off the customer service at Daddy’s and Cap’n Roy’s we called around.
Gabriella’s popped up on my gps. I spoke with the girl at take-​out and asked if they had an area with the game on so we could eat and drink. She put me on hold to find out. She quickly came back and said for us to come on over and they would accommodate us.
When we got there they let us go to this small room upstairs. In this small room there was a tv in the corner, two small tables and a thin long high table. We sat at the long, tall table and the waiter, William, put the game on for us.
We had a great experience there! William is a great employee. He has a very hard job since every food order has to be run up the stairs. That alone is a workout. We ordered chicken Alfredo and spaghetti and meatballs. Nothing complicated, but it was very delicious.
We felt very relaxed there and never rushed. William took great care of us. If you go by, ask for him and tip him well please. If we go back anytime soon, we will definitely return. It’s not always just great food that makes you feel like you got your money’s worth, it’s great customer service as well. It’s people such as these that you want to support.

Food was awesomeness… Kids loved it… nice atmosphere… service was great… thanks Regina!!!

Food was just ok. The vegetables on our pizza were almost raw and there was barely any space on the pizza. They should stop serving salad with the pizza because it is unnecessary
especially if it is substandard. If they left it off we wouldn’t have noticed. It consisted of a bowl of lettuce and a plate with two small green olives two tiny squares of cheese and two small banana peppers. Why give this at all.

This place exceeded all of our expectations! We ordered the Italian nachos and 2 pizzas…(the Roma and the Soprano. Out of 5 people of my family, 3 preferred the Roma but still really liked the soprano. The nachos were out of this world! The best I’ve had… seriously! They were piled high and full of flavor! Eat here, I highly recommend it. My husband and I spent $ 55 we each had 2 drinks the nachos and one of the pizzas.

We had a family vacation on South Padre this week and had the good fortune to eat at Gabriella’s twice. My wife and I came in on Tuesday night and had a pizza, salad and a glass of wine. $ 25! The food and service were excellent and how can you beat that price.
So, we took the whole family who came in on Wednesday and had a celebration on Friday night for our last dinner, which included various pizza’s, lasagna, and spaghetti. It was fantastic, our server Luke was terrific, and they generally treated us like something special. I would highly recommend you come here while on the island. It was excellent all the way around!

Giving them 5 stars for the Calamari. The waiter was a bit immature… He made a point to tell us they use canned tuna in their tuna dish…
I hear the Italian nachos are bueno– will try them on my next visit.

Very good belly full & very satisfied! Place had character & service was excellent
Calamari — very good the marinara sauce was tasty & calamari was crispy & delicious $ 11
Calzone — huge enough to feed almost 3. I got the classic, very good! $ 17
Cannoli — This was very good they serve it with fresh fruit (strawberry & blueberry) & a whipped cream you will want to save room for this! $ 7
Only down side, if you are on a budget, was it was a bit pricey we went for dinner which is always pricier than lunch.
And they deliver

It was the night before the Inaugural Padre Island Marathon and we needed to carb load. I saw the great reviews on Unilocal and convinced my fellow runners to come to Gabriellas. There was a 45 minute wait that Saturday night– but we braved it in anticipation for the delicious food that we could smell in the parking lot.
When we were seated, our server Aubrey came over and asked for our drink order. It was apparent she was in a bad mood, but we kept our cool and asked for our drinks. One of the girls at my table is allergic to citrus so we all ordered our waters with no lemon. Aubrey brought us all lemon waters and rolled her eyes when we repeated that we water with no lemon because she had an allergy. She was so very rude when she returned, but we were starving so we ordered the toasted ravioli, house salad, a pizza, and pasta dish. I asked what was inside the ravioli because I was allergic to mushrooms and she rolled her eyes again and said just meat and spinach. She also argued with us that the pizza was too large for us to order– we had to say it was fine 3 times. That was the final straw. We asked her to send over the manager, again she just stormed off with an eye roll.
The GM, Tim, came over and asked what was wrong so we told him and he gave us Dana to finish our meal out. Dana was adorable and even checked with the kitchen to insure the food we ordered didn’t have any citrus– turned out the salad did– I’m so thankful he checked for us before my friend ate it– using an Epi– pen really hurts.
As we were happily munching on our food– an adorable man in a wildly patterned shirt made a b-​line for our table. He asked us how our food tasted, but we instead asked him who he was. His name was Arnie and he was the owner, checking on us after he heard we had a bumpy beginning to our meal. We praised Tim for correcting the issue and Dana for being the most pleasant person in SPI. The food was fabulous and gave us plenty of energy for our run.
Just ask for Dana if there isn’t a ridiculously long wait. His smile is worth it.
Aubrey
Tim– GM
Dana
Arnie– owner

We had a very enjoyable evening tonight at Gabriella’s Italian Grill & Pizzeria. The wait staff went above and beyond. The service was friendly and professional, and the food was excellent.
We started with an order of toasted ravioli and as a native St. Louisan, where Toasted Ravioli was invented many moons ago, this was some of the best I have ever had. Gabriella’s has an extensive selection of beers, and a fairly priced wine list.
We decided to share a pasta and pizza, opting for the Roma Pasta and Nonna Rose’s White Pie. The Roma Pasta is advertised as spicy, and while it did have something of a kick, I wouldn’t dissuade people who do not enjoy spicy food from giving it a try. The red pepper cream sauce is very flavorful, and the sun-​dried tomatoes only increased the yumminess.
Nonna Rose’s White Pie is a delicious, ooey-​gooey mound of ricotta, fontina, mozzarella, parmesan, and romano cheeses with spinach and pancetta. The crust on this pizza was cooked to perfection and the house offers an incredible vinegar and garlic sauce that was perfect for dipping. I would definitely order this pizza again, though careful if you’re watching your sodium, the pancetta was understandably salty.
As it is offseason on SPI, I was impressed that there was still an illusionist entertaining the kids with card tricks and the like, even during the six o’clock hour when the restaurant wasn’t that busy.
My only, minor pet peeve, which garnered the four star rather than five star rating is that we ordered the Smores Pizza for dessert. It was a sweetened pizza crust, baked with marshmallow and a whole Hershey’s bar. On the side came four shot glasses of chocolate milk. It was absolutely delicious. The dessert menu did not have prices, and it was a whopping $ 28, which caused a bit of sticker shock when the check came and sent the total bill for the meal much higher than I think we anticipated. I take full responsibility as a patron for not asking how much the dessert cost, but I think when a server is faced with a party of two ordering a $ 28 dessert, a heads up would be appropriate. Especially considering that the cost of the dessert was more than either of our entrees, and no one ever expects a dessert to cost that much in a casual restaurant.
Good service, great food, will go again and ask more questions next time :-)