Cate's Italian Garden

We arrived at 4:01. Party of two, first customers of the evening. It took over an hour to get our food. It seemed as though the larger tables received all of the servers’ attention. When we got our food, it took about 10 minutes to flag down someone to ask them for some red sauce. The place smelled extremely musty. The decor was bizarre. Wish I had taken a photo of the strange picture that was hanging by my husband. It was of a chef that looked deranged. And on the very next wall there was the exact same creepy picture! The tossed salads we got were simply some mixed greens with a couple of cherry tomatoes and sliced canned black olives tossed in a very astringent and tart balsamic vinaigrette and they cost $13 each. My gluten free pasta was cooked well. Not mushy. But was quite blah tasting (which is why I was wanting the side of red sauce) My husband reported that the chicken Masala was good. Disappointed that they didn’t have gluten free bread available. My his brother reported the bread that he had was chewy and had possibly been microwaved. Took quite a while to get our to go boxes and check. They charged an almost 7% fee to use a credit card! When we asked another server where the notice of this charge is, she apologetically informed us it was on the menu. I am sure that we are not the only hungry, weary travelers who missed that little tidbit of information. Fortunately, we were able to have the credit card charged removed and were able to pay for our meal in cash which saved us $7. Overall a very disappointing first meal on our vacation in Bolton Landing.

Excellent food and friendly service. Feels very clean and the waitstaff and bussers are clean and responsive. They have to handle a lot of sidewalk traffic to get people seated and also deliver curbside especially during COVID restrictions. Saw some people complain about tip fees but this is pretty standard for a restaurant for large parties. My favorite is their pizza, and they also have a very good gluten free pizza crust. They can handle allergies well.