Maiella 4610 Center Boulevard, Queens, NY 11109

"Not sure why people give high remark for this restaurant. They must be the local residents who are trapped in the area, and this is the only option. For people who must come here, don't expect much on service and quality of food. Call a uber or take the train back to Manhattan to treat yourself better, but if you don't have a choice, here's my recommendations: Skip the appetizer, ingredients are not fresh, taste like reheated foods from the frozen section. The shrimp was not fresh, it does not have the crunch, but they did make a good tasting sauce to compensate the cheap ingredient. The simplest calamari are also not fresh, tough and lack of taste. Their meat balls are dry and hard, the sauce was good, but a bit salty. Since the food is not fresh, skip on their oysters, too. Overall, appetizer = Applebee's with less portion. Main, just get their table side truffle pasta and rigatoni dishes, they cheated on the truffle pasta by adding a lot of truffle oil to emphasize the truffle flavor, but the 6 small thin slices of black truffle were there for decoration. Still, it’s good but a bit too oily and salty, you can pair it with their overpriced cheap wines. salmon was ok, like home cook pan seared, nothing special. Branzino has no taste, just skip. I didn't notice anyone in the restaurant ordering their $180 tomahawk steak, so might not be worth it considering, there are so many Michelin star steak houses in NYC for this price range. Dessert, skip. Regular diner quality choc-cake with ice cream. Go somewhere else for better options. Service, the hostess gives me a stuck-up/attitude vibe. We had reservation at 6:30, the restaurant was fairly empty, but she made us wait by the cold windy entrance and took them over 15 minutes to seat us. Our wait staff was not professional either, never came by to check on us, couldn't find her when we needed something, it took 3 busboys and one other waiter to get to her. Appetizer took a 45 minutes to arrive, and then another 50 minutes for main course, no one checked on us in between time. I noticed our waitress was more attentive to the large group party at the adjacent nook. I guess because they are large groupand will leave a bigger tip, so they get more attention, since 20% tip is automatically included on the bill. For the same price, you could eat at any Michelin 1 star restaurants in Manhattan, even some with a view."

"Last night I went to Maiella, Long Island City to celebrate a friend’s birthday. What a lovely restaurant, beautifully decorated for the holidays. Drinks, food and service were top notch! But what stole the show was the delicious fresh pasta made in a cheese wheel! We’ll definitely continue to visit Maiella! ❤️"

"We had good experience before and this time we came back with a couple friends for dinner. Good service, delicious food and nice ambience. Delicious Beef Meatballs, and the Pan Seared Duck Breast was flavorful. The Rigatoni with sausage was good but a bit salty. We enjoy our dinner and will sure be back again."

"Really enjoyed this Italian place, but it's on the expensive side. The Ceasar salad was really good for a starter. The Eggplant appetizer was very small (they said 3 pieces but it felt like one small piece made of 3 even smaller bites) but ok. The crudo appetizer was good as well and we also snacked on a pizza before the main dishes and it was pretty decent. For mains, I had the branzino which was a really good dish and I enjoyed it a lot. The tartufo pasta was also really good (had a few bites). For dessert we had tiramisu, chocolate olive oil cake and the flan. The tiramisu was by far the best."

"The staff were so patient and accommodating. We celebrated my father's birthday here with 16 guests and were sat in a lovely table off on its own side. We all were given special individual attention and the food was spectacular. I highly recommend this as a special experience. The kid menu food is so delicious for the little ones!"