Sub par on every level, frozen food we sent back and was still charged for. Food was bad and so was service
Don DeVries
Had the pleasure of my wife and I returning to one of our Islands restaurants, Isola last night and was really pleased. It’s nice to begin thinking of enjoying local restaurants after a summer of visitors, guests and other obligations. Really enjoyed the Cioppino with pasta. Sauce was wonderful, rich but not heavy and overbearing. It was filled with seafood, including shrimp, octopus, squid and shellfish. Totally enjoyable nice portion, so that I had enough to take home for lunch the next day. My wife thoroughly enjoyed the swordfish special served over various vegetables. It was prepared to perfection and the caper sauce complemented the entire dish. Really nice place to enjoy that is “affordable”.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Ursula V
Great atmosphere on the front porch and nice drinks. Good food with friendly service. Delicious risotto balls and burgers. Stays open a bit later than most places on the island.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Keith W.
The people / service is relaxed and friendly, the pastas are top notch, flavorful, bar is fun and friendly. Love this place.
Chuck Prato
Highly recommend. You'll wait a bit, but they make up for it being the nicest people. The food is fantastic.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 4
Pat and Dave Masopust
Tomato and buratta . 2 1/2 cherry tomatoes. Very disappointed for 18. Entrees were very very
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 4
rlee2000
We had a family dinner of 10 last week at Isola and all of us enjoyed our meals. We mainly had pizza and salads, which were fresh and tasty. The service was above average. Highly recommend.
David Chess
Lovely little Italian place, good food, friendly service, prices no less but no more than you'd expect for one of the roughly two places to dine on a very upscale island. :)
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Danny Betanzos
Some of the best wings I have ever had. The portions are great and the rest of menu looks fantastic. The eggplant parm was delicious and filling.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Catherine Zhang
They do not care about the quality of their food here. Ordered a pizza with anchovies, farm fresh egg, and arugula salad (each topping was $3-4). Instead of arugula salad, they put on 4 charred basil leaves. Also ordered a Caesar salad that was supposed to come with focaccia croutons. Instead, it came with a few cold mozzarella sticks on top. Also ordered the fritto misto, and the zucchini that came in it was soggy. Feels like they don’t pay much attention to the preparation of their food, and when they run out of an ingredient they just throw something random on instead. The waiter we had was very nice and polite, but they were understaffed, and as a result, service took a while.
Disappointed in the food, although the meatballs were great. Too noisy.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 3
Service: 3
Alexis O.
I arrived at shelter island pretty late and was struggling to find food. Isola was open til about 11pm which was great but just wasn't as seamless as you would think. We tried to order online because we were exhausted and they cut online orders off at 9pm. We drove to the restaurant and we were welcomed to order to go. The sidewalks roll up at about 7:30, you can't even find bottled water after a certain hour (just an aside). The hostess who took our order was amazing, the food was subpar. We ordered the burrata, there was a bunch of arugula a few tomatoes and burrata was somewhere in there. We also ordered the mushroom Gnocchi and although gnocchi is my favorite it just wasn't good. I ordered some fried seafood and it also just wasn't great. I think options on the island are limited but this just wasn't what I expected.
Andrea S.
I've tried this place a few times now and the food never gets any better. Tonight I ordered the special " Chicken Francaise" with spaghetti. The portion was large but the chicken was terribly salty, too thick ,over breaded, no sauce and no lemony flavour at all. Pasta was bland and overcooked. I gave it Two stars because our server was very pleasant. Sorry to say I won't be coming back.
James N.
My first visit to Isola -- late winter 2021 as isolated sectors of the economy were just tentatively emerging from the pandemic -- was a positive experience: Gracious welcome and service, no rush to make up our minds and menu choices, good tasty dishes presented with pride and care. But then we were only 2 of the total of 8 guests in the place that weekend evening. Fast forward to last summer: Dining room packed -- also a weekend, but what a difference the intervening months made -- and we were seated promptly at the reserved time next to a table of 16 raucous people, celebrating loudly, . . . switching seats . . . swapping plates . . . high-fiving . . . singing . . . clinking glasses . . . Celebrating their sailing race victory (they were still carrying on when we left). A few minutes after being seated, our server appeared to learn our choices, but could not hear us, so we walked with him to the entry hall to give our orders (no big deal -- we're young-at-heart, and agile). Our dishes appeared a Full Hour (shouting at each other to be heard) Later, and were disappointing compared to the artistry we remembered from our winter visit. No flair, no subtlety. No effort at presentation. The grated parmesan and fresh ground pepper didn't help. We bailed before desert, left the minimally respectful tip (the experience wasn't our overworked server's fault), disappointed. By the way, there was no evidence of the 'rude', 'chatty' owner other reviewers have mentioned. Hard to know whether that was a good thing for us, or an explanation for the poor show.
Lauren M.
Went here a while ago with my sister and the food was okay but the service was terrible. The owner (i am assuming) was beyond rude and we ordered takeout and didn't receive our dessert or any utensils or anything.
Sub par on every level, frozen food we sent back and was still charged for. Food was bad and so was service
Had the pleasure of my wife and I returning to one of our Islands restaurants, Isola last night and was really pleased. It’s nice to begin thinking of enjoying local restaurants after a summer of visitors, guests and other obligations. Really enjoyed the Cioppino with pasta. Sauce was wonderful, rich but not heavy and overbearing. It was filled with seafood, including shrimp, octopus, squid and shellfish. Totally enjoyable nice portion, so that I had enough to take home for lunch the next day. My wife thoroughly enjoyed the swordfish special served over various vegetables. It was prepared to perfection and the caper sauce complemented the entire dish. Really nice place to enjoy that is “affordable”.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Great atmosphere on the front porch and nice drinks. Good food with friendly service. Delicious risotto balls and burgers. Stays open a bit later than most places on the island.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
The people / service is relaxed and friendly, the pastas are top notch, flavorful, bar is fun and friendly. Love this place.
Highly recommend. You'll wait a bit, but they make up for it being the nicest people. The food is fantastic.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 4
Tomato and buratta . 2 1/2 cherry tomatoes. Very disappointed for 18. Entrees were very very
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 4
We had a family dinner of 10 last week at Isola and all of us enjoyed our meals. We mainly had pizza and salads, which were fresh and tasty. The service was above average. Highly recommend.
Lovely little Italian place, good food, friendly service, prices no less but no more than you'd expect for one of the roughly two places to dine on a very upscale island. :)
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Some of the best wings I have ever had. The portions are great and the rest of menu looks fantastic. The eggplant parm was delicious and filling.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
They do not care about the quality of their food here. Ordered a pizza with anchovies, farm fresh egg, and arugula salad (each topping was $3-4). Instead of arugula salad, they put on 4 charred basil leaves. Also ordered a Caesar salad that was supposed to come with focaccia croutons. Instead, it came with a few cold mozzarella sticks on top. Also ordered the fritto misto, and the zucchini that came in it was soggy. Feels like they don’t pay much attention to the preparation of their food, and when they run out of an ingredient they just throw something random on instead. The waiter we had was very nice and polite, but they were understaffed, and as a result, service took a while.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 2
Service: 3
Restaurantji Recommends
Disappointed in the food, although the meatballs were great. Too noisy.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 3
Service: 3
I arrived at shelter island pretty late and was struggling to find food. Isola was open til about 11pm which was great but just wasn't as seamless as you would think. We tried to order online because we were exhausted and they cut online orders off at 9pm. We drove to the restaurant and we were welcomed to order to go. The sidewalks roll up at about 7:30, you can't even find bottled water after a certain hour (just an aside). The hostess who took our order was amazing, the food was subpar. We ordered the burrata, there was a bunch of arugula a few tomatoes and burrata was somewhere in there. We also ordered the mushroom Gnocchi and although gnocchi is my favorite it just wasn't good. I ordered some fried seafood and it also just wasn't great. I think options on the island are limited but this just wasn't what I expected.
I've tried this place a few times now and the food never gets any better. Tonight I ordered the special " Chicken Francaise" with spaghetti. The portion was large but the chicken was terribly salty, too thick ,over breaded, no sauce and no lemony flavour at all. Pasta was bland and overcooked. I gave it Two stars because our server was very pleasant. Sorry to say I won't be coming back.
My first visit to Isola -- late winter 2021 as isolated sectors of the economy were just tentatively emerging from the pandemic -- was a positive experience: Gracious welcome and service, no rush to make up our minds and menu choices, good tasty dishes presented with pride and care. But then we were only 2 of the total of 8 guests in the place that weekend evening. Fast forward to last summer: Dining room packed -- also a weekend, but what a difference the intervening months made -- and we were seated promptly at the reserved time next to a table of 16 raucous people, celebrating loudly, . . . switching seats . . . swapping plates . . . high-fiving . . . singing . . . clinking glasses . . . Celebrating their sailing race victory (they were still carrying on when we left). A few minutes after being seated, our server appeared to learn our choices, but could not hear us, so we walked with him to the entry hall to give our orders (no big deal -- we're young-at-heart, and agile). Our dishes appeared a Full Hour (shouting at each other to be heard) Later, and were disappointing compared to the artistry we remembered from our winter visit. No flair, no subtlety. No effort at presentation. The grated parmesan and fresh ground pepper didn't help. We bailed before desert, left the minimally respectful tip (the experience wasn't our overworked server's fault), disappointed. By the way, there was no evidence of the 'rude', 'chatty' owner other reviewers have mentioned. Hard to know whether that was a good thing for us, or an explanation for the poor show.
Went here a while ago with my sister and the food was okay but the service was terrible. The owner (i am assuming) was beyond rude and we ordered takeout and didn't receive our dessert or any utensils or anything.