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Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend. My parents were up to visit this past weekend for Father’s day which was a good time. We ended up checking out a couple new places to eat along with the usual staples of Fish Market and Abuelos. One of the places we went to was Marcellas. This place just opened recently on High in the Short North. I have always been a big fan of the Cam Mitchell places so I thought that we should check it out.
The menu is rather simplistic but nice all around. There is a wide variety of pizzas and pastas for everyone to choose. There is also a cheese and sausage menu that you could pick from. All in all there is a good variety that shouldn’t limit anyone from going here. The restaurant is more of a tapas kind of Italian diner. We didn’t realize until after we were done eating that the dishes would be rather small which allowed you to do more of a family style sharing kind of meal.
The pizzas looked good but were more of the flatbread style so I went with the pasta Arriabatta, my mom had a meatball dish, my dad had the lasagna. The arriabatta was very good and had a good amount of flavor to it. The only major concern I had with it was that there was nothing in it so I asked for some mixed vegis to put in. I was extremely glad that I asked for them because otherwise the dish would have been extremely simplistic. My mom’s dish had a single meatball and instead of the usual marinera sauce, it mixed a white sauce in with it also providing a very creamy flavor to it. My dad’s dish was a block of lasagna that tasted much different from any other lasagna dish I have ever had. The dish was more of a creamy based tomato sauce with a load of cheese on the top of it. I thoroughly enjoyed trying it and so did my dad. However, he complained that the portion size was too small. I somewhat agreed with my dad but we made up for the difference with a salad and lotsa extra bread.
It was nice to finally leave an Italian restaurant without feeling that overloaded carbed feeling. The portion sizes were good for the prices of $10 for pasta and the experience was very favorable overall. I would definitely recommend this for a pre-bar/spice trip or a nice night out with friends. If nothing else the prices are what should bring you in. The three of us ate with wine, salads, and a main dish for under $55. Thats a pretty damn good deal to me. Especially for a cam mitchell joint.
Ouch! That is a pretty tough review.
We finally tried Marcella’s for the first time last night, and I have to say I was pretty happy with it. I’ve heard from a few other people that it’s supposed to be really loud, and while it wasn’t a quiet, “private” atmosphere you might get elsewhere, it didn’t really strike me as any louder than any other crowded open floor-plan restaurant. Maybe the front windows were closed when he was there, and that led to the “ear-splitting” atmosphere?
I thought the food was very tasty, with a nice selection. The cheeses were very good, but the portions were on the small-side for the price. The other small plates were well suited to the price, and fit the sharing concept really well. I agree that the gnocchi was tasty, but it was WAY on the soft-side, a little too soft for my tastes. And I wasn’t particularly impressed with the bruschetta either — the flavors were great, and it was some of the most tender prosciutto I’ve ever had, but there was too little topping for the size of the bread.
Service was the really bad part – it wasn’t horrible, but the drink service was very lacking. I wonder if it was a side-effect of using the bottles instead of pitchers or something, but our water ran-out after about 10 minutes there – it got filled up once in that first 10 minutes and not at all after that. It was also a challenge paying, and took several attempts with the waitress before we got everything all sorted out there.
But other than the service, I thought the food was great. The atmosphere was nothing all that exciting, but I don’t go to a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio expecting it to feel just like Italy… in all, Marcella’s is definitely the good Italian restaurant by Cameron Mitchell that I’d HOPED Martini’s would be.
After going to Marcella’s several times for drinks, I FINALLY had dinner there!! I thought everything was great!! For apps we had a veal meatball, Caprese and Beef Carpaccio. The meatball was great, it fell right apart and just melted in your mouth. The caprese was decent, I prefer more of a “layered” caprese, but it was still good. I loved the carpaccio, I hate when I go to restaurants and there is all kinds of sauce or pepper on the meat, so to me Marcella’s was perfect. For an entree I had the chicken giardinera, it was awesome!! The lemon sauce on the chicken was to die for!! It was perfect with the pickled veggies. One of my friends had the lasagna and it was very good as well. For dessert we had the tiramusu, it was off the charts as well. I cannot wait to go back!!