Michael J's Italian-American Restaurant

Great place, great staff and food!

Had a great dinner tonight. Food was outstanding, portion size was perfect and the service was awesome. Special thanks to our server, Ray, and the front end manager Nicole for a great meal.

Our place for Italian in Ruidoso.

My niece paid for us to pickup to small individual cakes for our birthdays. Got it to go.

Tucked side of the mountain,in Ruidoso,NM is a truly spectacular Italian restaurant!!! (My husband is Italian so we know a little about true Italian dishes) Anyway,we were delighted by this find!!! There wasn’t anything we tried that wasn’t absolutely on point!!! This chef knows his stuff!!! Don’t miss an opportunity to find this diamond-oh!! And the staff is amazing also!!!

Pleasantly surprised!!!

Wendi Pene

What a find in the mountains. Some of the best Italian food we've ever eaten. Fresh and amazing..

This has been our special place for my wife's birthday the past 4 years and has never disappointed us in any way. We even have our favorite place to sit. I have yet to go beyond the Cioppino. It is the best. My wife generally orders the salmon and the service is always at the top. Our last visit was just a week ago with perfect weather - what are a few raindrops? Thank you, Brian, for the great food and you Autumn for the awesome service. We will be back to dine with you and to Ruidoso Cabins for our stay. Blessings, to all!!!

Our first time and just as good as we hoped. Being from NY I love good Italian and this was great. All the staff were very professional and Ray did a great job taking care of us. We will be back for sure!

Made reservations the day before for 7:15 pm. Arrived on time. Sat 3 other parties before us and said we were designated for a table that was part of a 16-top table and couldn’t/wouldn’t move us to a different table.

Atmosphere: 1

Service: 1

Such a UNIQUE restaurant. I like the exclusive feel that it offers. Very very VERY good food and the service is also not too bad. I will always consider this one of my favorite “ultimate date night” restaurants

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 4

Recommended dishes: Minestrone Soup, Garlic Bread, Spaghetti Bolognese, Fettuccine Alfredo with Shrimp, Tiramisu Cake, Fettuccini Carmella, House Salad

I am beyond disappointed with the treatment we received at Michael J’s Italian Restaurant. As a group visiting from out of town to assist with the wildfire efforts and supporting local workers, we were shocked by the behavior of the owner, Nicole. Despite understanding there may have been a staffing shortage, her rude and disrespectful demeanor was absolutely uncalled for. When we inquired about seating, she went as far as to tell us to “get the hell out.” It’s one thing to experience a delay or inconvenience, but being treated so poorly by an owner of an establishment was incredibly disheartening. We expected better hospitality, especially given the circumstances of our visit. I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone looking for even the most basic level of respect.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

The warm crusty bread was very good to sop up the sauces, which were seasoned well and flavorful. The pasta (noodles) unfortunately are suspiciously commercial, precooked and reheated; the texture was gummy and too soft. The olive oil on the table smelled stale/plastic. The caprese was basic/fine but overpriced, and entrees were fairly priced. The outdoor patio seating would be very nice in fair weather. Staff were very attentive, despite our table being “ready” with no tableware on arrival

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 2

Service: 5

Was a little bit warm inside the dining area.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 5

Service: 5

We were just asked to leave.
Made a reservation over 2 weeks ago (August 1st) for a party of 12 to celebrate daughters birthday and specifically asking to be sat outside, even asking if it were to rain would we be accommodated inside, which they said yes... We were asked to leave a $150 deposit. We got there on time and were told that there was no seating outside because others had already reserved the tables... We expressed our discontent and obviously a little irritated having paid $150 for the reservation... The manager, Nichole Flowers then asked us to leave because she assumed that we would be rude to the staff.... My daughters are in the service industry and were among our party, there is absolutely NO WAY that I or anyone in our party could be rude to the servers... They were not the ones who took our reservation... And even if they were we could never be rude... I had been looking forward to their veal dish for over 2 weeks, again not even thinking twice about leaving a $150 deposit since we have been here plenty of times... But being pre-judged because we were a little irritated about not honoring a reservation, again with a $150 deposit, is ridiculous and very unprofessional. Food by the way is delicious and every time we have been there the wait staff have been excellent... Not so sure about the "management". Makes me question if it was because our entire party is Mexican and the party who were sitting at the outside at the tables we RESERVED with a $150 deposit were Caucasian.... We'll never know...

Made a reservation two weeks in advance for outdoor patio seating and paid a $150 deposit. Once we arrived they told us they could not accommodate the reservation any longer due to a mess up on their end. They said they could give us indoor seating and we said okay that’s fine but then they assumed we were going to be rude to the staff for some reason??

Half of our family have worked in the restaurant industry for the majority of our lives and even owned our own establishments in El Paso, so we would never be rude to any staff or workers because we understand mistakes happen.

I am in disbelief and honestly really curious as to why an establishment would just automatically assume people would be rude to their staff?? We were calm and just asking questions as to why they would take a $150 deposit but then not be able to accommodate. Very disappointed and feel profiled to be quite honest.

Atmosphere: 1

Service: 1