Filippi's Pizza Grotto Little Italy

My sister and I roamed around Little Italy to enjoy a delicious and relaxing dinner. We tried The Works pizza with anchovies, shrimp filippi, and tiramisu for dessert. The place felt so authentically Italian, it almost made me feel like I was back in Italy, even though we were just in Little Italy, San Diego. Hehe. They also have a small market where you can buy items like olive and avocado oil, which of course I couldn’t resist getting. The restaurant is spacious and filled with so much to see. The lighting is dim to make it feel more intimate (though the internet connection was pretty bad, lol). But overall, the place and the staff were wonderful, and the food, especially the massive pizza, was absolutely delicious.

The food was good. It definitely wasn't great. I was hoping for more. We went Saturday night so there was definitely a wait. About 50 ish minutes. Service was. Eh. They seated another party at the exact same time as us (table right next to us) and that party got their waters and ordered an app before anyone even came over to us. I guess there was confusion about whose table it was. Garlic cheese bread was pretty good. One tables came with sauce, ours didn't. Ordered lasagna with a meatball and spaghetti with meatball and a half pepperoni pizza. The waitress who decided that we would be her table, was pleasant but it was busy so seemed very flustered and not as attentive as one would hope. Once we got our orders in the food came out pretty fast. The pizza was not what I had hoped or expected when they said it was the best in town. Kind of Sbarro from the mall but thicker. It was very very dough. The bottom of the pizza was barely cooked. There was a lot of cheese. Pepperoni was under cheese so it stayed quite soggy. The lasagna was all right. It was overloaded with sauce so it lost that crispy baked goodness I like in a lasagna. The meatball, although big as a fist lacked flavor. It was okay. Kind of just a big ball of boring meat. The sauce was okay. Just far too much. Got a cannoli to go. Of course I ate it as soon as we got back to hotel. It was crunchy and filled all the way through. The cannoli cream was missing something. I tried really hard to figure out what it was, but the best I could come up with was the cream was too light and airy. I would say, check the place out if you like basic food. Pricy, but what's not any more?

We were visiting the area and we love good Italian food. We happen to find this place by chance and were exceedingly surprised and thrilled by their cheese ravioli. So we decided it was worth a sit down meal. My wife and I were absolutely blown away by everything. From their service, to their delicious food and their more than reasonable prices and generous serving sizes. Absolutely delicious and anytime we are back in SD. We will be coming back to this amazing hole in the wall restaurant.