As highly rated as this seemed, I unfortunately would not recommend Mamas and Leonies and will not be returning.
There is an awful vegetarian selection - the vegetable lasagne was all leeks with a few sliced carrots, and one rogue piece of broccoli. The lasagne wasn’t event layered, just had one pasta sheet on the top. Not sure how “authentic” the food is, but I couldn’t stomach my main as it felt like the kitchen had clearly just thrown all their leftover vegetables into my dish. Also, there was only one other vegetarian option on the pasta menu which was plain spaghetti with tomato sauce, I feel they could definitely add to this and think that the selection is poor in this day and age. As far as the rest of the menu is concerned, there were only a couple of vegetarian pizzas and no vegetarian burgers or calzones. Very disappointing. Additionally, one of our party had the gluten free menu which had no description of the food items, which I would recommend the restaurant add in future. My friend ordered “penne with chilli” believing this would be a chilli/tomato sauce. It was in fact chilli con carne which she didn’t like too well and left half of the chilli. The menu oneself did not feel like an italian restaurant, more like a pub menu, as there was a rib selection and burger menu.
The service was ok, apart from the waitress asking if we would like the dessert menu after clearing our starter plates (when only four out of the six of our party had starters), not a flaw but probably just due to inexperience.
There is absolutely no atmosphere, there is no music playing and the tables and chairs are so old and wooden, we had to have two of our chairs swapped as they were about the give way. The table we were seated on four person table but they claimed it was a bigger table for six people - in the end we had to place our water jug, bottle of wine, drinks menu, and spare water glasses on the floor just to make room for the food. If they had less tables in, it might be an improvement as to not feel so crammed.
Would not recommend and I believe this place needs a lot of work in upkeep and modernising and authenticating their style and food.