Sabatino's Italian Restaurant

On our first and only visit to Sabitino's we were surprising amazed that such a resturant could still be in business after the food we were served. Lets start with bread you would buy in the supermarket, italian soft and cold. served with butter in foil wrappers. You call this italian..where I come from italian bread is crunchy and served with olive oil and olives or something apptetizing. Next salad iceberg with very few vegtables to say the least.Dinner OH MAMMA chicken and veal somewhat rubberized and clams and linguine made right out of a can. Have you heard of bay leaf in clams. Sides of pasta served with a sauce that tasted like ketchup. If this is italian I have been glad to be at sabatino to really appreciate a good sauce. Don't waste your tastebuds or money on this so called Italian resturant.

Pros: fast service

Cons: food prepared from a can

Posted 10/03/09

I was visiting Baltimore for a business meeting and several of my co-workers suggested Sabatino's from previous trips to the city. I was NOT disappointed. I was greeted by a friendly host at the front door, seated immediately and served by a very attentive waiter. I had a Bookmaker Salad which was delicious. My Veal Cacciatore was perfectly tender in a wonderful and obviously freshly prepared marinara sauce with just the right texture. My side order of penne vodka was served al dente - as it should be - and it was really tasty, too. I travel frequently for business and dine out often. If my travels bring me anywhere near Sabatino's in the future, I will definitely be back!

Pros: great food, reasonable prices, big portions, friendly staff

Posted 10/01/09

sabs has been around a long time and the food has always been very good the service is also very good I've been in the service industry for a long time and I always go to sabs for a great meal

Pros: shrimp renato

Cons: nothing

Posted 09/28/09

im a frequent customer of sabs and only because their service and food are so consistently good, i read some of these reviews and just encourage people to not let one bad experience keep you from going back. Sabs is family friendly when ever i have a family event i go their because it feels like they are apart of my family. Servers have been there for years. That should say something about the work environment. I ask one server and she said she was there for like thirty years wow. I dont normally write these reviews but i thought sabs was getting alot of bad slack and wanted to give them the review that they deserves. Go to sabs become apart of the family.

Pros: service

Cons: not open til 3am seven days a week

Posted 09/21/09

Just stay away! The menu was unimpressive, the specials posted on the outside sandwich board were not really "specials" but normal menu items. The Bookmaker Salad was comprised of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, a couple of bland olives, cut up salami, tasteless cubes of some nondescript cheese, and pieces of shrimp that had any and all of its flavor somehow removed. The House Dressing, although full bodied, was also devoid of flavor, but had a nice flavorless gritty texture. The Bread was adequate, but if you go to the trouble of serving it wrapped in a napkin in a breadbasket, please heat it a little!

Pros: Server was friendly

Cons: Poor, poor quality

Posted 09/03/09

Had a waitress that looked like a big red neck, had to track her down everytime we needed anything.
The two tiny mannicotti was frozen inside, and there was just tons and tons of sauce, literally enough sauce for a family, and it tasted exactly like Chef boy ardee meat ravioli sauce.
We had to pay "Extra" for the house dressing? AND, to top it off, the veal parm was so salty we couldn't eat it.
I told the waitress we didn't like our meals, and she DID take them off the $50 bill.
But, she never asked why or said one word to us, we just saw the meals taken off the bill.
The floors were dirty too. What a disappointment.

Pros: famous story of man shot in hallway

Cons: every damn thing

Posted 07/29/09

Look,

The bookmaker salad is hands down the best value in Little It. When you go anywhere else you're looking at $15-16 for a salad 1/3rd the size. Salami, Shrimp, Lettuce, Eggs and dressing -- all you need.

For all those crazy cooks out there in culinary complaint land they've never had a high quality ingredient based dressing that is of the utmost respect to the littlest of italy. That "grit" you taste is authentic Parmesan coming right from the motherland. I apologize that you're tongue can't handle such delicate intricacies so if you need your food refined and processed down to Gerber quality, go hit-up Olive Garden and have them nuke you some dinner in the micro-oven.

Boolean true;

Pros: Bookmaker salad

Cons: All these naysayers

Posted 07/23/09

The Bookmaker salad is gross. The dressing is gritty. Plenty of other reviews have stated the same thing. There is sand in this dressing........period. The entree's are typical low class Jersey garbage. This is not Italian food at all. You are better off picking a fronzen dinner at Safeway than this pablum. Had the food be flavorless I would have given it two stars. Since it tasted like sweaty feet I gave it one. Although, I am frustrated with paying $40 to eat freshmen year dining hall food, the most amazing part of the night was walking through the restaurant to get to the bathroom and seeing every single table packed. For the love of God, do not eat here. Go to Cafe Troia in Towson for the real deal.

Pros: Decent service.

Cons: Gross, overpriced food.

Posted 07/26/08

Only reason it gets a star is for the friendly service. And even then, our server disappeared for about 20 minutes while we waited to exchange our salad, which was drenched in a house dressing that had an overly sandy texture to it. Friend selected balsamic vinaigrette as a replacement dressing...what we received was neither balsamic, nor vinaigrette. Next we were served eight dollar 'fried mozzarella', which were clearly frozen mozzarella sticks. My friend had the veal scallopini, which looked and tasted more like a hungry man dinner than an italian specialty. I actually did enjoy my entree, which was the tortellini with tortellini sauce. But overall, less than authentic, and just poor food, especially for the price.

Pros: the tortellini with tortellini sauce, although oddly titled, was delicious; service

Cons: overall quality of the food; ambience; pricey

Posted 07/22/08

I'm not sure many people know about the inner working of this place. Being a former employee, well, I can tell you some stories. MInd you, I am not disgruntled and therefore am not writing this in anger but I just think the public should know what it's putting into it's mouth!! In my 3 years employed there, I witnessed cooks smoking cigarettes WHILE cooking your food (some of the ashes not exactly making it int the ashtray if you know what I mean...), big sweaty cooks digging into the pots of pasta with their big sweaty hands and a cigarette in their mouths. It was the most dirtiest disgusting place I've ever worked at. The thing that really surprised me though? The night that the new bussboy threw away the bowl of cheese dressing that a customer had requested to dip their bread into. Vince Sabatino himself rushed into the kitchen and basically reamed him out in front of the entire kitchen for dumping it out, saying that it could have been reused!!! So against health code violations!!! Germanos is pretty filthy too but no where NEAR as bad as Sabs. Watch yourself folks and remember, big portions = good, cigarette ashes in your pasta primavera= hideous

Pros: VALET PARKING ALTHOUGH NOT FREE

Cons: VERY FILTHY

Posted 07/20/08

From the grease ladened calamari to the bland ravioli, this meal was forgettable. The dressing, which they rave over, was gritty and almost made me gag. I would not recommend this place. In fairness, I must say, the wait service was friendly.

Posted 06/21/08

I went to Sab's a couple of nights ago. It had been about 23 years since I had eaten there. I remembered how wonderful the Bookmaker salad was and how I had to scrape up just enough money to afford that and a couple of drinks. I always vowed that I would go back when I could afford a full-blown dining experience. Finally, I did so, two days ago on a vist to Little Italy. The Bookmaker salad was disappointing. To be specific, it was the dressing, perhaps the centerpiece of the salad, that was disappointing. The ingredients were so gritty that it felt as though the cheese had been replace with sand. It was nasty. As for the main course, a meat ravioli "Al Gus," there were six small ravioli in a sauce that tasted like a bland chicken stock with a few slices of pepper and olive thrown in. The meat filling was also bland. I was stunned, given my memory and reviews I have read. I've had better Italian dining experiences at chain restaurants. Perhaps it was just a bad day for Sab's, but I don't plan on going back. Amicci's, nearby, is a much better bet for the money, as is Italian Gardens, up in Towson. Such a pity it was to have to experience the decline of one of the stars in my memory.

Posted 05/06/07

My husband and I were out downtown with another couple and we had an GREAT experience at Sabatino's last night. It was a busy Friday night, but we were seated within minutes, even without a reservation. We were greeted warmly at the door when we arrived by a smiling host who seemed genuinely friendly. We were seated on the 2nd floor in a cozy little room with lace curtained windows. Our server was quick to get us started with drinks and a rundown of specials. She was friendly and knowledgable about the menu and quick to suggest her personal favorites. We started with a Bookmaker Salad - just 1 for the 4 of us to share - which was HUGE and AMAZING and enough for us all to share. We skipped appetizers - just not hungry enough to eat that many courses. We all ordered different entrees so we could pass them around the table. We tried the Veal Francese a la Sabatino, Baked Rigatoni, Chicken Lynn and Shrimp Renato. All 4 entrees were delicious! My personal favorite was the Shrimp Renato. It smelled so amazing when our server brought it to the table that my mouth was watering!!! It tasted even better! We ordered 2 desserts (cannoli and tiramisu) and 4 forks, and they were delicious, as well. The service was great and our check at the end was surprisingly reasonable, especially given the amount of food we were served. The same friendly guy was still at the front door when we left and he chatted with us while we waited for the valet to bring our car around. Again, he was personable and really quite witty. You could really tell that he was happy to be there, that he loved what he was doing, and that he truly cared about our comments. I can't believe I've lived so close to Sabatino's all my life and have never been there before. I will definitely go back soon!

Pros: great food, big portions, inexpensive, friendly service

Posted 01/27/07

Didn't think I could go wrong with a 9 rating but this was possibly the worst meal I've had in a long time. I had the fruti de mare with white sauce. I live in central (land locked) Texas and we have better seafood at chain restaurants. I've been to Italy and, there, the meal is an entire evening's entertainment. We received our appetizer before we had even ordered wine. The salad plate was picked up at the same time the entry was delivered. If you are looking for authentic Italian, this is not the place. If the seafood can't be as good as as a chain restaurant, then take it off the menu. If you can't let diner's dine leisurely, then call it a fast food joint. They couldn't even successfully call us a cab.

Posted 08/29/06

"This might be the best Fettuccine Alfredo I've ever had," said one of the ten people in my party last night. We were seated promptly and every dish came out at the perfect time, quick and great! I signed up for this citysearch account just to write a review for Sabatino's. Before going, I read some of the other reviews about Sabatino's and didn't believe the negativity. They were wrong, plain and simple. I had the Veal Saltimbocca, which was great. My girlfriend and I shared the famous Bookmaker Salad, which was also terrific. The desserts were intense and delicious. In summary, I recommend Sabatino's for anyone, particularly for groups. Good stuff!

Pros: Great food, Great service, Friendly, fast

Posted 06/05/06

What a disappointment!!! I have gone to Sabs since childhood. I have never been so dissappointed. I read the comments on this site before going & didnt believe the bad press. Upon arriveing Louis sat us, just like the old days. After that NOTHING was like before...our bread was cold, our waiter was clumbsy & not attentive, my wine sauce tasted like dishwater,my dates sauce was like day old paste, our check was put on the table 5 mins after the food was & another waitress(who looked like she was on something)kept bumping into us & our table causing our drinks to spill. The only thing that was good was the bookmaker salad which has shrunk in the last 5 years. WHAT HAPPENED TO SABS???

Pros: bookmaker, latehours, house dressing

Cons: HORRIBLE FOOD, outdated setting, HORRIBLE service

Posted 01/18/06

Sab's is one of my all time favorite places to eat. I'm comfortable here with my family, with friends, or just with a date. The Bookmaker Salad is something everyone should experience - it's Great!!! Suggestions?!?!? Try the Veal Saltimbocca (sp?!?! - not sure about the spelling on that one!!!), Shrimp Renato, Chicken Lynn, any kind of pasta with Veal Sauce. Don't forget the garlic bread and save room for dessert!!!! Oh, and the people are really nice here, too. Friendly servers and the guy at the front door always remembers me, even when I don't come in for a few months. I like the way I'm treated here.

Pros: good food, big entrees, friendly people

Posted 06/21/04

I was highly disappointed. The wait staff is slow, even though the restaurant was empty. The chairs are dusty. The salad was okay, after being recommended highly by others. I could make it in my own kitchen. As for the main, the veal ravioli was actually disgusting, imagine boiled meat with maybe just a little salt. nasty. It tasted like it was from the freezer and had just been either boiled or microwaved. The lasagna was terrible, the ground meat in it was tasteless, no italian taste whatsoever. The veal ravioli was so bad it was not even "properly microwaved". I would never recommend the tiramisu to anyone. It was awful. I would rather go to any coffee shop for tiramisu, and for $5....it was a rip off. For $55 that I paid for this outing, it was a total rip-off. Terrible terrible terrible!

Pros: Nice decor

Cons: , unfriendly wait staff, pricey for the qualit

Posted 06/15/04

Baltimore best inexpensive Italian food! Miami's best tastebuds rates it EXCELLENT! Not only are they open late! but the food & ambience makes you feel right at home. If it weren't for Sabatino's, I'd be stuck eating fast food late at night!! (Yucko!) Thanks Sabatino's! For your great quality food, service & your friendly staff.

Pros: Open late, Great food, Inexpensive

Posted 05/21/04

Sabatinos is truly a great restaurant that is what has put it on the map and won it some many awards the food is excellent and the service is very good as well I go out ot eat quite often and the service doesn't compare. Sabatinos is always consistent thank you Sabatinos

Pros: food, service, portions

Posted 03/29/04

Sabatino's

The value here is in quantity not quality. the portions are large and the atmosphere is loud and casual.

If you just want to eat a lot of mediocre italian food, drink wine and converse loudly with friends, maybe this is the place.

If you are looking for a quiet classy setting with fine italian cuisine, or a place for a romantic date this is not the place.

Their canoli is atrocious, I suspect it was made with store bought frosting and chocolate chips, an absolute disappointment.

Pros: Large portions

Posted 02/21/04

Sabatino's is the best place to eat in Little Italy. They have the best marinara sauce i've ever tasted. I suggest the gnocchi's with marinara sauce it is like heaven. When you go there see Peachy, she is the best waitress i've ever had.

Posted 11/08/03

I've reviewed this restaurant before. I had dinner here for the first time about a year ago. It is now one of my "favorite places".

I had dinner here last night with a large group (about 95) of Hopkins Graduates. It was incredible! The event was meticulously planned. We all ate, ate well, and ate hot, cooked to order food all at the same time! The service was outstanding, the "people" were great, the food was, as always, delicious.

This restaurant is HUGE (i think they said they have over 400 seats) but you'd never know it. It's a bunch of small to med. sized rooms. And last night IT WAS HOPPING!!! I don't know how they did it, but this was one of the best dinner parties I've ever attended!

Can't wait to have my next Bookmaker!!

Pros: great party, great food, great service

Posted 05/23/03

Everyone raves about Sab's...but I can't figure out why? The place is dark and dusty, the tables are cramped in, the service is slow and the waitresses are not friendly. And as for the food...it's run of the mill Italian that rivals Chef Boyardee. Lots of fried food, heavy and oily red sauce, and dried out bread.

Posted 04/04/03

This is for tourists or the after-bar crowd who just wants to go anywhere but home. Too noisy and crowded. One time we were seated in a small room - everyone else in the room was celebrating someone's birthday. Not only was this uncomfortable but there was spaghetti sauce slopped all over the wall above our table and they never attempted to wipe it off. There are too many good restaurants in Little Italy to ever go back here.

Pros: open late

Cons: noise

Posted 03/15/03

Yes, they were busy. Really, really busy. But I expected that on Valentine's Day. We had an 8:00 reservation & though that hallway looked incredibly crowded, we were seated within 10 minutes. We had a lovely table in one of the upstairs dining rooms. Our server was friendly, helpful, and always right there when we needed her. Our dinners were delicious (Veal Francese and Shrimp Renato) and the portions were huge. Dessert was also outstanding (Tiramisu). Loved the Bookmaker Salad and Garlic Bread. Can't wait to go back!

Pros: Great Service, Great Food, Great Atmosphere

Cons: They need new carpet.

Posted 03/01/03

This restaurant has good hours and a well-known name but the food is definitely not the best--by far.
If you are in Baltimore looking for good Italian food, I think you will be very disappointed. This is more of last minute, late night choice. There are definitely a few good things on the menu, but there are so many better options out there.

Pros: popular, salad

Cons: food is average, crowded

Posted 02/10/03

Great Food,Sevice, and the price is right. Love the location nice quiet Italian hood.

Pros: Crowded

Cons: more seating, Great prices

Posted 02/08/03

Sabatino's has some of the best Italian dishes that you'll ever tast...but under no circumstances try the shrimp scampi during lunch hours. My co-workers and I went for lunch over the Christmas holidays and 3 out of the 5 of us order shrimp scampi. It was not the usual shrimp scampi that I get during the dinner hours. If you could have seen the look on our faces when we were served what looked like a bowl spaghetti soup with shrimp. The sauce was the worse I ever had, so loose and tart, and the noodles were too thick.

Pros: great service

Cons: terrible parking

Posted 01/14/03

My wife & I eat at "Sabby's" at least once a month and have been doing so for at least 5 years. The people are nice, the portions are huge and the food is excellent. My personal favorties are Shrimp Renato, Veal Florentine and Baked Rigatoni. They have great garlic bread and the salad dressing is delicious!

Pros: nice people, huge portions, great "white" sauces

Cons: busy

Posted 01/13/03

Their house salad dressing, garlic bread and the bookmaker salad, are the only items I would eat at this restaurant. The rest doesn't even compare to "good" italian food!

Posted 01/03/03

All that Sabatino's now has, is it's legendary name and decent salad dressing. The resteraunt has obviously lost what it once had and what once made it one of the top resteraunts in Baltimore. I recently went to Sabatino's anticipating a great meal and looking forward to eating the same high quality, gourmet food that I once had when I was young. I was highly disappointed with every part of the meal, from the appetizer to desert. Thankfully, other resteraunts in Baltimore's Little Italy stepped up to take the place of what Sabatino's once had.

Posted 12/04/02

Sabitinos's has past its prime. What was an excellent resturaunt, while its still good, has fallen to cliche. It's a great place to eat late at night but if out on the town in little italy......i would recomend somewhere else.

Posted 12/04/02

My wife's Braciole was fabulous and my Shrimp Scampi was wonderfully subtle. Scampi often reeks of garlic and drips with too much butter. This sauce was delicate and not the least bit oily. The cannoli was very good but I've had better desserts.

Pros: They care, we weren't rushed

Cons: It's BUSY, stairs

Posted 11/29/02

I was really disappointed in the meal served at Sabatino's last night. The atmosphere was wonderful, and everyone is very nice, and even the mozzarella and tomoato appetizer teases you into thinking the main course will be wonderful. What a let down. The vodka sauce was too thick and was just pasted on what had to be a pound of rigatoni. (Not that there is anything wrong with making sure people are full when they leave, but a huge portion like that usually suggests lesser quality food). And the veal was overcooked, leaving the lightly breaded coating to resemble chicken fried steak. We looked forward to better things, and were very disappointed in the so-called authentic italian food served. The only reason I will remember this restaurant is the stomach ache that remains the next day. Overpriced and overcooked.

Pros: Ambience, Mozzarella and tomato, location

Cons: Annoying valet parker, food, price

Posted 11/22/02

I ate at Sabatino's last night and it was quite possibly the worst Italian food I have ever had. The veal tasted like chicken fried steak and the pasta could have come out of the frozen section in the super market. For the price of this meal, I expected to eat something that tasted a little better than shoney's. The mozzarella and tomato appetizer was actually very good, but it stops there. I would definitely not recommend this restaurant to anyone that knows what good italian food tastes like.

Cons: expensive, food was awful

Posted 11/22/02

Everyone in my party was very impressed with their food. This is "drop your fork" good Italian food. And everyone was so stuffed that they had to take a doggie bag home. Oh, did I mention that we got the 1/2 sized lunch portions? If you want great Italian food, choose Sabatino's.

Posted 10/24/02

As soon as you walk in, you just think to your self, why me? The staff is not only dum, but rude aswell. The Italian food you buy at your local market is five times better then the slop they call your entre'. If you want to sabotage a business meeting, take your clients here.

Cons: tooo big, old and dilapidated, surviving on memories

Posted 10/24/02

I have been going to this resturant since I was a child. It is by far my favourite resturant and will always be. the food and service is excellent. The prices are well worth it!

Posted 10/10/02

Several years ago, dear friends Josie & Reds, who have been going to Sabs for over 40 years, took me along and introduced me to Vince, Phil, Baron, Peaches (or Peachy to some) and the rest of the gang that makes up the Sabs family. I was immediately "adopted" into the fold and have been a loyal fan ever since. I take visiting friends from NYC and they always look forward to the welcome they receive - even at 3am. PS: the food is great, too!

Posted 09/26/02

Very romantic, quaint, and delicious food and atmosphere. A true Italian setting of food and ambience.

Posted 09/26/02

I was downtown with my family today for one last fling before school starts. We walked over from Port Discover (on their recommendation) for lunch. We were seated promptly, treated like family, and had a WONDERFUL lunch. The waitress was kind enough to suggest half orders and it's a good thing. I can't imagine how anyone could possibly eat a whole order of anything here based on the size of the half orders. The ravioli were homemade - and it was obvious - they were delicious. My son had a multitude of food allergies and even during a busy, busy lunch, the chef came out to discuss his needs & cooked his lunch to our specifications. I was impressed beyond words. Thanks, Sabatino's, we'll be back soon!!!

Pros: accomodating, homemade pasta, felt like family

Posted 08/21/02

Sabatino's is by far the worst italian restaurant that I have dined at in Baltimore. The food tasted more like a microwave dinner than an authentic italian meal. Was the marinara sauce out of a jar? Please look elsewhere for the best italian food in Baltimore because Sabatino's is NOT it!!

Cons: Horrible Food, Boring atmosphere

Posted 08/21/02

Couldn't believe what I was reading. I NEVER write reviews, but felt I had to comment. Sabatino's is, without a doubt, a WONDERFUL place for Italian food "like grandma used to make"! I am no food critic, but I know a good meal when I've had one, and I've always had outstanding meals and service here. I always feel welcome and always love my dinner. Try the bookmaker, try the garlic bread, try the Baked Rigatoni, and don't forget a Cannoli for dessert.

Pros: great service, great food, great people

Posted 08/21/02