Prati Italia

Reservations/Seating Came on a Friday night with a reservation at 8:30. Took 10 minutes to get seated even though the restaurant was fairly empty — all the reservation slots were fairly open. Was easily able to change a 9 o’clock to an 8:30 since no one else had reserved around that time. Not familiar with the area, so maybe that’s just how this restaurant operates. Ambiance The whole building is well put together — everything looks nice. However, the bathrooms were pretty dirty. Didn’t look like they clean throughout the day — no soap in the bathroom either. That said, I did peek into the kitchen and it looked super clean, which I appreciated a lot. Drinks Drinks were decent. $13 Espresso Martini — very good. French 75 — $13, very standard but decent, nothing amazing. Appetizer Fried cheese triangles — four of them, fairly decent size. Pretty standard, above average. The sauce was pretty good and filling enough for two people. Good cheese pull. Entrées Chicken Parm — It looks exactly like it does in the pictures, and that’s not a good thing. From the photos it already looked like it was drowning in sauce and garnish, and that’s exactly how it comes. Completely soggy — no crisp whatsoever. The pasta is very soft, seems fresh, but the Alfredo sauce was visibly watery when the plate was set down. No seasoning on the chicken, no seasoning on the pasta. Definitely not worth $28. Fillet with mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts, with balsamic carrots added — Everything here was good. Steak was cooked well, mashed potatoes were above average and well seasoned. The balsamic carrots were really good. Hadn’t tried the Brussels yet at the time of writing but the overall plate was solid. Wine Ordered a red wine — decent, but it came out pretty cold. Was expecting closer to room temperature. Hard to get the full flavor profile when the temperature isn’t right, but it wasn’t terrible. Service Our server was really good. One reason I was so disappointed in the food was probably because he hyped it up — told me everything was made from scratch, talked about the other restaurants the owner has, really sold it. That’s his job, but it set high expectations the food didn’t meet. He was also super kind — he noticed I didn’t eat much of my food and was able to get it comped, which I really appreciated. Final Thoughts I’m from out of town so I’ll probably never come back, but if I did, I’d look into the pizza. It’s a Roman/Detroit style and from the pictures I saw, it looked the most promising.

PRATI Italia has become my favorite place to eat in Jacksonville, Florida 😍 they have delicious and fresh Italian food (my favorite) and so many gluten free choices. It makes my heart so happy to eat there. Also they have an amazing Nutella brownie (also gluten free). The atmosphere is always relaxing and the staff are so attentive and kind. If you love Italian, you must try it. 🍝

We were excited to try out a new Italian restaurant & heard such great reviews about y’all. However, the service was slow, the food was mediocre at best, it was overpriced for smaller servings, even fell short with basic marinara for the cheese sticks. I also don’t understand why I can’t order a tea & soda/beers come out in a pricy can? I will say the chopped salad for 2 was great (they let me get it as 1 part, though charged me 15 bucks for it when the double serving is 20). The server wasn’t very attentive, didn’t check on us much even with us being a table of 9 there for a birthday. We were missing app plates, napkins, silverware & asked for red pepper, it took her 15 mins, maybe even more to comeback with these for us to even eat our food. While it’s not the servers fault there was another party with children yelling and being very disrespectful throughout our entire birthday celebration. I wis someone would have mentioned to them they weren’t the only table in the restaurant & they needed to calm their children (i’m a mother, I understand kids can be hard sometimes but I would never have sat there foe that long with them that upset)

Pleasantly surprised with what a fantastic meal we had. We were visiting Jacksonville and drove past the restaurant and noticed all the cars so decided to check it out. Happy Hour had brought in a decent crowd and we were even able to take advantage of it in the main dining room. The server, super charming and very friendly. He was consistent on checking on how we were doing. A lot of the dishes are offered in two sizes opt for the smaller, the portions are big (see photos). We shared the Burrata which was amazing and super fresh. The short rib entree was so tender and served with brussel sprouts. We also had the gnocchi which was some of the best I have ever had. Sadly, no room for dessert but I am sure it would have been as delicious just like the rest of the meal.