formaggio grill

may be italian but don't expect to order pasta. fish tacos are excellent. wife had filet and thought it was awesome. shane, thanks for the great service.

enjoyed the lamb here. the marinade and reduction sauce for the lamb was fabulous. lamb had a sweet, tender, melt-in-your mouth taste. perfectly cooked. did not taste gamey like lamb normally does. formaggio did a great job balancing it's unique flavor.

we dine here two three times a year, always nice appetizers, great entrees and good wine selection. perfect date night or lady’s night for a nice evening out.

thanksgiving!! the 1st course had me following traditional thanksgiving dinner involving turkey, mash potato and some delicious cranberry sauce. the 2nd course was new to me but i am now a massive fan of pumpkin pie. i must say the staff are brilliant here, perhaps the best service i had on my whole trip. will always remember my american thanksgiving experience.

this place was delicious! the service was perfect. our steaks were cooked perfectly and tasted spot on. the prices are spendy for the amount of food, but my husband and i were both very happy with our experience.

disappointed with high-priced low taste new year's day dinner. lobster bisque soup thick but bland-- one tiny tired piece of lobster found in the bottom of the heavy, flavorless soup. thickened with something-- not sure what. no bread served with the soup.
then beef bourguignon arrived, with thick gravy, little wine taste, heavy thyme, the meat, carrots and potatoes not cooked to the soft and melting textures desired in this dish, lots of gravy, but again-- no bread.
no saffron in the paella, no identifiable sausage.
did not stick around for dessert after hefty prices with little flavor.

this place is great, i love the food, especially the filet, which is always cooked perfectly, and you can't beat the selection of wine and their drink menu;) i don't like that almost all of their drink menu has to do with absolute vodka, which the 90's called and even they don't want that vodka back! the rickarita is awesome, get it and ask for it as a double or in a short glass for a single so you are not drinking a ton of juice, then it is wonderful! i always have a good experience here and love to sit at the bar, i highly recommend it!!

overpriced especially for the low quality of the food. we had the calimari and the fried veggies were either still frozen or very cold. ribs were terribly tough and hard to eat---very far from "falling of the bone". the prime rib and cocktails were good but the food here is always so hit or miss its not worth the gamble.

mixed feelings. i really want to like this place, since i seem to fall in love with atmosphere! it's very expensive! service is not so great. some of the dishes are good, some not so good! they closed their doors one night (i heard due to the staff walking out) but didn't bother to call folks who had a reservation! hello!!! you had their phone numbers!
baci bistro is around the corner with consistent delicious-ness. now that's italian!

jury still out, like or not like?. went there for the third time tonight, the first time for a meal though. excellent service, attentive but barely noticeable. i did not order an appetizer but several people at my table had apps, such as escargot, shrimp/hummus, and soup. everything looked and smelled wonderful. meals came, everyone seemed to eat everything on their plates. i ordered the filet and lobster. steak was awesome, good taste and tender. lobster was awful, no taste and mushy. with two drinks, the surf and turf meal, and a side of mushrooms, i owed $71. i agree with the other reviews, this place is pricey! for that amount of money, i will probably visit other restaurants that produce a consistently higher quality entree. to pay $45 and get crappy lobster...no good.

bring mouthwash. with an $85 bill for two people (minus tip), you'd expect i'd have great things to say about the place. unfortunately i do not. from the start, the waitress holly was very rude, seemingly inconvenienced by the fact that we weren't there to consume large amounts of wine. she perked up for us momentarily when i ordered their $35 rib eye steak; i had high hopes. my wife ordered their lobster mac & cheese. both my wife and i are sure that most of the lobster in the mac and cheese was some mystery substitute (had some lobster, but mostly what we decided was pork). my steak tasted alright to begin with, but the chef botched the sauce pretty badly (tasted like charcoal, only worse). it was the most bitter meal i'd ever had, so bad i couldn't finish even a quarter of it. worst part was the after-taste that i spent the next hour trying to get out of my mouth.

we left very dissatisfied for the price paid. normally, we'll give restaurants a second shot: come back another time or ask the waitstaff to correct what ever we didn't like. not here. i wanted to have our waiter holly take the steak back so they could make it edible, but she disappeared for a good 20-25 minutes and we were ready to go.

short on good wait staff, short on the details, we won't be trying formaggio grill again.

everyone was nice and it had a great atmosphere but the service was horrible. we waited a very long time before the host had to come by and take our order. we rarely saw our server and when we did she didn't really say anything. the food took well over 20 minutes and was overpriced for the quality.

food poorand over priced. sunday brunch crab cake benedict. both husdband and i ordered that , the poached eggs was hard boiled.
the crab cake was filler with very little crab. lobster bisque was served in an innappropriate bowl and very over priced.
$11.50 for about 6 oz of soup.
wait staff were very good, professional and pleasant.
problems in the kitchen
will not visit the kailua spot again. we do like the market city spot.... their french onion soup is really good

a little pricey, but the food was tasty. this is a place for groups, not couples. very loud and busy, not a place for a romantic dinner.

italian/hawaiian -- interesting. this place looks sort of italian, with slick, modern fittings and high ceilings. and it's got lots of italian touches on the menu with ahi wrapped in prosciutto and paninis. but we went for the seafood, because that's what you do in hawaii, as far as i'm concerned.

my wife is a sucker for lobster bisque, and we order it wherever we see it. formaggio's version, which is tomato-based instead of straight creamy, was almost as good as the #1 version we had in a place in fort myers, florida which is now closed, so we'll never have its like again. therefore, i'd go to formaggio grill for that if i was back on oahu.

the opakapaka with capers and mahi-mahi with sundried tomatoes (those are a couple italianate touches, eh?) were pleasing. another notable standout was the tiramisu. lots of times this is a cliche of a cake, but formaggio's take on it was a square piece that had a rich coffee flavour. good stuff!