Sopranos Kitchen

Italian?
Not by a long shot. People are all very nice and try hard but it is chef Boyardee
Well situated in expensive real estate so they need to price high for what they provide.

After reading the reviews on Unilocal my gf and I were a tad worried, than I remembered most of the people who give bad reviews had such a bad experience that they wanted the whole world to hate. None the less I was craving italian food and we decided to give it a whirl.
We walked in 5 minutes before kitchen closed, yea we were THOSE people, and were promptly seated by the pleasant hostess. Our server, who was quite warm and congenial at this time of the night, knew the menu backwards n forwards; her name was Marlo fyi. My gf and I kow how to eat, here is what was consumed.
Soprano special pizza
White wine clam pasta
Chopped salad
Calamari
side of spahgetti w/​meat sauce
Overall the food was decent, I understand why people warned against the butter heavy w sauce that comes on it, the spahgetti noodles seemed overcooked as well. Looking past the quality of pasta, the sauces were exquisite and the italian mears on the salad and pizza were top notch.
What really got me, was the how hospitable the service was, both the manager on duty and the server added a level of class to tge meal I havent experienced since when id go out with my eccentric and rich estranged mentor.
Will try this place again and order something different, maybe the bakwd pasta that was recommended ny managment or perhaps just the meat and cheese platter, cause im a hungry bear #bridesmaids

Alas, Soprano’s closed for good on Saturday July 28^th.
Happily, sometime in the fall it will re-​emerge as Figlio’s 2.0
Story has it that the bar is being remodeled in more of a ‘Figlio’ feel (curvy) and enlarged. JP Samuelson will take approximately 10 or so signature dishes from the old Figlio, and create the rest anew.
If the new one matches the excitement, value and variety during happy hour as the old one, this will be one HOT spot!!!

So, I ordered lasagna. The bartender said it was vegetarian lasagne but could be ordered «Bolognese» style to add meat to it. Let me tell you something… Adding spaghetti meat sauce to lasagna DOES NOT make it meat lasagna. It sucked and I would not recommend anyone make that mistake again.
It wasn’t what I was expecting from a lasagna dish at a place called «Sopranos». Serving what I got to a real Soprano-​type person would’ve easily gotten you killed «back in the day»… Know what I’m sayin’?
On the plus side, the bartender did ask if I wanted to swap it for something else. I was just too hungry to deal with it so I ate about ¹⁄₃ of it, paid my bill, and went down the street for an after-​dinner libation.

My wife and I returned to Sopranos with a Living Social coupon for $ 20, this time we were seated in the dining room. Gotta love a nice big booth to yourself. Our hostess was really nice too.
I sat down and ordered a Diet Coke on a beautiful Minnesota March day. Our waitress was super cool and refilled my Diet Coke about 5 times and even when I was waiting for my bill she brought me another Diet. Love it!
I ordered the Salmon Burger and my wife got the Margareta pizza, no cheese, no oil. After a lot of good conversation, our food came. The pizza was perfectly done and my wife loved it. Lots of great sauce and chunky tomatoes. She doesn’t like raw tomatoes, so I got them. Score!
The salmon burger came out on a huge bun and with a wonderful anti-​pasta with a perfect amount of shredded vegetables
The salmon had a wonderful underlying lemony flavor and the fish was beautifully crumbly. I still wish that they would toast their buns. It was spectacular.
I ordered the side Caesar instead of the chips on the side. The dressing is delicious and creamy, lots of fantastic anchovy goodness blasts in your mouth with each bite. Sooooo good.
Even with the coupon, we had to add another $ 13 with the tip, so it is a little on the pricey side, but overall they have great service and a fun atmosphere.
With Crave next door and and a cool Irish pub around the corner, the West End is not hurting for goodness.

I got a $ 10.00 off coupon in the mail, so this was how dinner was decided. It was hilarious the way I ordered because it was all things I read in Unilocal reviews. Never did that before. I love the contrast of this block. Because Soprano’s is as dark as Cooper’s Pub is bright. So it may be determined by your mood where you end up going. We sat very close to the private dining areas, and one has the most gorgeous black chandelier I ever saw. Food was hit or miss. The calamari was the main hit. It’s up there with my favorite at It’s Greek to Me. The dipping sauce is drool good. Lobster bisque was a miss. It had this finely chopped crunchy veggies on it. A weird texture, maybe chopped lobster would be more appropriate. It would give it more flavor, that’s for sure. I got the lobster gnocchi. I liked everything in it but the gnocchi, a good amount of lobster in a yummy cream sauce made it a hit. I just made linguine and clam sauce the night before so Basil got the Pasta Fresca, I tried some and it had a nice flavor. Dessert was an unfortunate miss. I love penna cotta. It needed to be sweeter, but the gelatine fruit topping, as opposed to fresh fruit which is customary, was just welded on, and had an almost sour flavor. The ricotta cheesecake was too lemony and maybe they should just go for a standard ricotta pie.
I went to the ladies room, and you see one of the coziest bars. I’d like to eat there sometime. The service was pretty good, many people tend to you. But the star was Kenzie, the assistant to everyone. She was always there and I can’t imagine how they would do without her.
I think people were expecting this to be more of a Vesuvio’s Restaurant like Artie Bucca’s in the HBO series. But it’s clearly not that kind of fine dining Italian establishment. But for what it is, I’m liking it.

Loved the free valet service. Enjoyed the warmth as soon as we entered the restaurant… really, though, there was heat coming from the fire behind the glass in the entry way! Impressive! The ambiance was elegant and classy. We were intrigued by their large wine cellar. Nice, roomy booths, too.
And now for the BEST part — their food! We closed our eyes when we ate the chicken marsala to enjoy every morsel! The grilled asparagus and seared polenta were also outstanding! We started with their flavorful chopped salad (and we loved the capers!) and their delicious bread. We felt the portions were really good. Service was excellent, too.
If we were in the neighborhood again, we would definitely return. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because we felt the prices were a bit too high. Thank you, Sopranos, for an enjoyable dinner!

The last thing the world needs is another mediocre Italian restaurant and that is all Sopranos was. The atmosphere is trendy and fun, but besides the modern, homey look of this ‘Crave sister’ restaurant, I was only somewhat impressed. Everything we ordered was par, but in a world diluted by Italian restaurants, you really need to rise above the rest.
I would recommend a few things, the calamari had a tangy spiciness to it that really surprised. The Lobster Gnocchi also impressed me as the creamy bits melted in my mouth.
The Cioppino left more to be desired and the salads were boring at best.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why this restaurant was so slow on a Friday night.

Ok, I have to say that this is a restaurant that actually cares about its clientele. I was invited to come back to Sopranos after the social media manager had read my negative review. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the event they were hosting, but he did invite me back to buy me lunch another time. Wow. They really kicked it up a notch. TJ, the socia media manager, sat down with us for just a couple minutes to talk about changes they’ve been making and to just talk to us. He gave us some lunch recommendations and then left us to enjoy.
They TOTALLY redeemed themselves. We shared the Tuna Tatare to start (which isn’t usually on the lunch time appetizer list, but they made it special for us). It was a mixutre of tuna and avocado, topped with fried onion and egg yolk. WOW. This was amazing, I loved the avocado mixed in! The real pleaser was the Baked Garganelli!!! Do yourself a favor and order this. As soon as you can. Then get ready to have your world rocked. It was garganelli pasta in a tomato sauce with spinach and pulled pork. Then topped with the motherload of cheese and baked so it was ooey-​gooey. Wow. It was so amazing, I think I just found my go-​to dish.
Our service was also impeccable. Our waitress couldn’t have been sweeter and was really on her stuff.
I have to say, Sopranos, you really outdid yourself. Can’t wait to come back again.

Everything about this place has made me want to make another trip back for round two. First, any place that actually has the «open table» reservations work gets a bonus in my book. Second, Thursday’s are ½ off bottle of wine night and that was a delightful surprise.
If I have ever put anything in my mouth as good as the Chicken Marsala that is served at Sopranos, I don’t recall what that might be. I can’t even explain it, but I tell you what, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since that evening.
Service was way above what I expected as the manager even came around to make sure our wine was up to par and actually have a conversation with us. Usually I can’t stand this (because I understand the ploy) but for some reason, this actually seemed honest.
Parking, as any West End shopper will know, is a complete pain in the neck. They have tried to make it work, but it just seems to keep getting worse. Not Sopranos fault as they do have valet as well. Overall, a great experience and I can’t wait to head back.

The folks at Sopranos reached out to me and around 60 others with less than ideal experiences at their restaurant on prior occasions and invited us in for a private tasting to preview some of the new items on the menu. Their goal was to see if we would give them a second chance to in their words «show what they were truly capable of providing» both in terms of food quality and service.
A+ to them and their social media team for reaching out to Unilocalers like me as well as folks who tweeted their dismay or posted a mediocre review on other sites. It was a great evening to have the chance to taste a wide variety of items including a variety of wonderful anti-​pasta, roasted salmon on wilted spinach, smoked duck risotto, hanger steak with pureed Yukon gold potatoes and a selection of yummy desserts accompanied by their house wines. It was even more fun to meet fellow foodies and compare notes (they seated us at tables of 6) and we had a great group — a chef, a massage therapist and two «ladies who lunch.»
We enjoyed all 5 of the tasting courses and the wine was fine (but not fab.). Any restaurant willing to reach out to such a large and diverse group of folks and host them in this way deserves a second chance. The food was good and the service attentive. Thanks Sopranos for a fun and memorable evening.

Went here on a weeknight with a work friend to try something new (er) at the Shoppes at West End, but it has taken me a while to write of the crap-​tastic experience that I’ve tried *hard* to push out of my memory box.

Food:
We ordered: Calamari (app); Linguine and clams (my entrée) w/​white wine; Beef cheek ravioli (my friend’s entrée) w/​red wine. The appetizer was decent — appropriate size, correct temperature, flavorful. However, both our entrees were below lukewarm and average (at best) in taste, thus NOT a good value based on PQQ — pricing, quality, quantity or in comparison to other chain italian eateries in town, ie. Tucci Benucch or Biaggi’s.
Service:
The waitress was completely inattentive until we were pretty much through the entrée, when she finally barked ‘how was everything’? I told her the food was cold, so she asked if I wanted to have my food ‘nuked’ to warm it up. I said no — I mean, is there really any point to warm up maybe 2 – 3 bites on my plate? She did not remotely seem empathetic nor asked if there was anything else she could do to make our experience a better one and instead tried to used car salesman «sell» us a dessert. Unbelievable, what a d-​bag move lady.
Venue:
Located in the shops at west end (St Louis Park/​394), there are plentiful parking options and the aesthetics of the venue ‘attempt’ to fit the area. We had reservations, so we were seated in a booth quick. I am no interior designer by trade, but I was surprised by how ‘dark’ it felt inside the restaurant, perhaps it was simply bad color scheme choices, but it didn’t seem inviting nor were there really any pleasing views.
Overall:
As with many other wannabe-​trendy-​designer-​imposter places — there is very little substance behind the hype. This was my first (and last) visit and in general: dismal food + crap service = not likely return. How disappointing!

Hosted a holiday get together for a small crew of my closest co-​workers. We were given enough space to commuicate, but it was pretty hard to hear during the Friday dinner rush. The space was beautiful and had really changed from the previous restaurants style. Service was great.
The food was nothing special. We ordered lots of apps and drinks. The edamame is a worth it, but the flat bread was very strange. It was described as a honey wonton crust with build your own toppings of prosciutto and cheese. It broke apart very easily and was difficult to eat.
Would give it another try and order the pizza, which according to other reviews is the best choice.

As soon as I walked in, I really wanted to like this place. The space is dark and red and exciting, and I expected as much from the food.
I ordered the baked garganelli, which similar to pulled pork and some pasta. I will say, their homemade pasta was delicious. I was expecting something with a little more sauce, tomato, and spice, but instead I got barbeque sauce on homemade garganelli. The menu says it has tomato, onion, and spinach, but I didn’t see any spinach, and not too many onion slices. My sister got the sesame tuna salad and the fish was dry and bland. With the sesame seed coating, I literally choked it down. My party also ordered the lasagna, which was enjoyed, and the pesto, which was delicious, despite being pretty oily.
If half the things ordered were sub-​par, I don’t think I’ll be back.

We went Thursday night for dinner & were very impressed!
I met Chef JP Samuelson at a work event last week which prompted us to make a reservation. Walking in, it’s a cool space. My husband absolutely loves Coppola wines, so when he saw the barrels on the wall, he was immediately sold.
We started with the tuna tartare which was really good. The balsamic surrounding it was to die for! For our entrée, I ordered the baked garganelli & Ryan ordered the supreme pizza. My pasta was incredible! The amount of pork in the dish definitely made it worth the price ($ 18). I tried a bite of Ryan’s pizza & thought it was good as well.
While contemplating if we wanted dessert, the manager came over & asked how our meal was. Being that it was our first time, she wanted us to try the ricotta cheesecake on the house. It was the perfect amount after a big meal & absolutely delicious!
We had impeccable service throughout the night & wonderful food. Chef JP was in the kitchen all night as well which I thought was pretty cool.
We’ll definitely be back!

Not impressed. If you want to go to a big Italian restaurant that feels like a chain, go to Olive Garden where the food is cheaper and tastes better.
We arrived at Sopranos around 5:30 and the place was pretty empty, which meant we had servers hovering around us asking for drink orders, etc. But then the service stopped. Once the place started to fill up, it took forever to get our food, and even longer to get our bill.
As for the food, I’ve definitely had better Italian. I ordered the tomato basil soup to start and wasn’t a fan. The soup was not smooth and creamy, but had a lumpy consistency and was too tart. Plus, you couldn’t taste any basil. For my entrée, I ordered the margarita pizza. It was OK, but it wasn’t hot! There’s nothing worse than luke warm pizza. Since our server took forever to come back to the table, I just waited and waited. Eventually she came to check on us and I asked her to warm up the pizza. They didn’t take anything off of our bill for serving cold food.
My hubby decided he really wanted sausage and peppers, so he ordered the sausage and peppers appetizer on top of a side of fettucine with marinara. He said it was OK, but the noodles tasted wet. The only reason I can think why this might be the case is if they cook all the noodles in advance and leave them in a pot of water… yuk.
I thought all of the dishes were overpriced for what you get. All pasta dishes are $ 17-​$ 20, that’s a lot for mediocre pasta. The pizzas are $ 11 and up, and you can definitely get a better pizza at Punch.
For some bad reason, we decided to order dessert. DO NOT DO THIS. Our tiny dessert was $ 9 and consisted of a miniature teacup filled with thick caramel pudding, a miniature piece of pine nut cake and three of the tiniest biscotti I have ever seen. What a waste of money!
I will not be coming back to Sopranos any time soon. You can get far better food for better prices at other restaurants.
One other thing to know, you can only get the happy hour special at the bar.

While I think the atmosphere is nice and I am sure the food is good, I went in with a group of business partners for drinks and was not pleased when the bartender told the group (there were 30 of us) that he wasn’t serving anymore because he wanted to go home. It was like 9:30! We were all looking at each other like «seriously», but yes he was serious. We were ready to drink for the next couple hours and would have had a huge bar bill (we filled the entire bar, which is huge by the way) and he was more interested in going home then making money. Amazingly, the manager didn’t say a word.
So, we went next door and gave our business to Crave where the drinks were overpriced, but we didn’t care. Good for Crave, bad for Soprano’s.
Hope they make it, but with an attitude like that, probably won’t be long for the world.

I’ve been back to Soprano’s a few more times and I love it more with each visit!
I’ve had the same server three times now and she not only remembered me, but also that I’m a vegetarian, recommending the lasagna as a good option (which I plan to try next time).
Since they’ve opened, Soprano’s has added new items to their menu like classic, wood-​fired pizzas. I ordered the Caprese pizza with fresh mozzarella and loved it. If you’re not extremely hungry, it could definitely split it with another person, or you could save yourself some leftovers. (I posted a photo of it in case you’re curious.) Just writing about this pizza makes me feel like one of Pavlov’s dogs…*mouth watering*
I couldn’t make up my mind on my last visit, so I also sampled a few other things. I got a side of the gnocchi and had truffles added. You know how some places extract the actual truffles and leave only the flavor? That doesn’t happen here. I could eat that dish daily.
The antipasti plate was also fabulous. It came with 4 types of cheese, olives and a blueberry/​pine nut concoction. Perfect.
My aunt ordered the special of the night: shrimp risotto with sweet peas and made a «Are-you-sure-you-don’t-want-to-try-this?!» face at me. She also said she’d order it again in a heartbeat.
Everything I ate made this one of those meals where not much talking occurred, but a lot of «Oh hi, I’ve died and gone to foodie heaven!» looks were exchanged.
P. S. I still stand behind the Bellinis.

It’s not often that I barely tip 10% and feel like I’m over-​tipping, but I now know that it can happen. On my first and only experience here, the service wasn’t only bad, it was horrible. Some people should NEVER work in the service industry, and our waitress was absolutely one of those people.
It took over 30 minutes for our waitress to even acknowledge us. Granted, the first 15 minutes were spent waiting for two other guests to arrive, but we weren’t even offered drinks, or water. While a little surprised, we were still fine at this point.
After the long wait she finally took our drink order: a bottle of wine. The bottle came out after about ten minutes, with bread, which was tasty, and we were finally able to order. The bottle though, ended up sitting empty in the empty breadbasket for over 15 minutes before my girlfriend finally decided to move it to one of the empty tables behind us to get it out of the way. Also, if you didn’t catch that, read it again: there were several empty tables around us! They weren’t that busy.
The food came out at an acceptable amount of time, and if there is one thing good to say about this place, it’s that the food is pretty good. Everyone at our table was pleased with the taste of their entrees. My girlfriend ordered the pesto pasta (Priest Pasta) and though it had a little too much olive oil in it, it was good. I had the Beef Cheek Ravioli and it was delicious, but not even remotely filling. The entrée size was shockingly small, and I would have been starving if my girlfriend didn’t share her pasta portion which was overwhelmingly huge. I understand that the ravioli takes more in terms of preperation, but it was the most expensive item ordered at the table and was ¼ the size of the pasta dish. At least give me some bread or something?
Anyway, the food was not really the issue in this visit because like I said, it was good. The terrible waitress that should never be allowed to work in the service industry was what irked all of us. She never once checked on us during our meal, and finally came back to our table 10 minutes after we finished. She then brought up that she had heard us earlier (during the wine pouring) talking about going to a movie, and asked if we were in a hurry. So apparently, her terribly slow service was how she performs when she thinks her guest are in a hurry. LMAO.
She left us our ticket, and didn’t return until we finally just stood up when she was walking by and handed her our cards to run. Then we watched her walk around for about 5 minutes to other tables while she was holding our bill, with our cards hanging out. She finally rang it up, and our (responsible/​financially sound) friend’s card was somehow declined, so she needed a new one. The first card ended up working fine at the movie theater afterward. The card thing may not have been her fault, but after all of the other ridulousness from this woman I wanted to at least share that information.
Also, to put it into perspective, ¾ of us at the table have had serving jobs before and we know it can be demanding. This woman just flat-​out did not have any interest in doing her job, at least that night. It might have been more understandable if she was busy and we saw her walking around to other tables, but for 90% of the night she was nowhere to be seen.
Food: 4/​5, service: –1 000 ⁰⁰⁰⁄₅
Worst waitress ever.

Well not a good start to a beautiful restaurant — lunch today was mediocre at best. I had a panini that and my guest had a bowl of soup (white bean) and a house salad — — nothing too exotic or difficult, however, for being one of the first seated we waited and waited and waited for our food.
When the panini arrived it was not pressed from the grill (approx. two inches thick). Once it returned it was literally a half of an inch or less thick and I couldn’t even cut into it — the cured meat was like shoe leather. Once our waitress check on us — I explained with reservation that my panini was not edible. I look up and three managers are looking at me and discussing my dismal panini, but not one of the managers came over and asked if I wanted anything else or apologized. The waitress only stated «well it’s off your bill» — — not exceptable unfortunetly. The white bean Kale soup was excellent — though!
Pretty disappointing, I will try Soprano’s again may be in a few months once they work out the kinks, focus on quality of food coming from the line and management steps up and takes proactive steps to take pride in the food they are serving.