Il Casale Lexington

Food and service was excellent. I would definitely return if I were in the opposite.

We came here for a birthday dinner and it was our first time. The restaurant was quite empty which should have been a red flag. My food was okay, but we had 2 dishes sent back due to it being too salty (must be the pasta water), by the time their dishes came back everyone was done eating and it was just as salty as the first time. The server was nice, but provided us with false information which ultimately charged us an arm and a leg to cut and serve cake. She said, We will charge you $5 to cut the cake into 5 pieces We understood and agreed to this transaction, it would be $10 to cut the cake into 10 pieces. Little did we know, they charged us $5 per slice for a party of 7. They charged us $35 and an extra 4% additional fee to use their plates and forks. The service costs more than the cake itself. The server knew that she was mistaken, but instead of taking ownership, the manager came out. Usually a manager with good social skills and customer service would apologize for the miscommunication and we could work something out, but he strong armed us and said that's how it's always been. They charged us about $40+ to push a round cake cutter twice and dishes that can be rinsed in a dishwasher. I understand that restaurants took a hit due to the pandemic, but this is unacceptable. We ended up spending $400 on mediocre food and bad management. I would give it 0 Stars if that is possible. I HIGHLY DO NOT recommend this place.

Wonderful experience. Sarah T. was so helpful and attentive. I have a bunch of complicated allergies and she and the kitchen staff were so attentive and careful with my food. Everything came out super hot and super fast. I think they were understaffed, like a lot of places are now, but you could barely tell. Even if the food wasn't as delicious as it was actually, I would absolutely come back if only for the service. Thank you Sarah!

Tl;dr: 3 stars for food. 5 for the other stuff. This place has everything going for it except the food. (Let that sink in. This is a restaurant we're talking about It survives, I'm sure, by virtue of location. It's in Lexington center. Once you get into the rich burbs, the dining options are limited. A friend from out-of-town was staying at a Lexington hotel (Aloft) for business and so I agreed to meet them for dinner and looked for a place. The menu looks great with plenty of pasta (made in house) and fish and old favorites along with new fangled. Plenty of apps and salads and cocktails and wines. It's the kind of menu that makes you either order too many dishes or vow to return. And it's not just the options, it's the way the food is described, as though a poet-foodie wrote it. They cater to all diets vegetarian, carnivore, gluten-free. (I'm not going to even discuss veganism. You folks are on your own They even have a GF pasta option. (I didn't listen past that statement because there's no way I was going to order it The problem? I got the bolognese simmered nine hours or some such with four kinds of meats and served with house-made tagliatelle. It was bland and dry. But worse than that (and I read this in another review which I didn't really believe) the pasta had clumps of hard undercooked parts where the formerly fresh pasta had dried as a clump and never separated in the cooking. Did I say clump? Yup. (Huge portion, tho, for what it's worth My date got the fish. It didn't look great. He said it was meh. We didn't spend a lot of time talking about the food. We also ordered wine-by-the glass. When the server asked if I wanted a second, I said sure. The second glass arrived and it was emphatically not the same wine. It was totally an upgrade!! No complaints about that except to note that there seems to be a quality control issue. The ambiance is warm and sprawling, which is tough to do. There's a lot of spread-out space inside across several different dining areas, a large bar, an open kitchen, and clean lavs. There's also a dog-friendly patio with a few space heaters. On-street parking all around. The servers were kind and eager and young. No complaints there. One more thing: we got there at 6ish and the place was packed. By the time we left around 8ish, it was nearly empty. The burbs, doncha know?

Food served hot all four dishes,served on time and spread out. Quality very good. Desert outstanding.