Colosseo Ristorante & Bar Italiano

SO SAD to see that Colosseo closed. When and Why??? Came into the city last night and was devastated. Where will I get my cannelloni from now on?

Food was ok. Nothing to remember. The place is very nice. Service great. Location is good.

While discussing having an Italian dinner in the city enticed us to make the drive… we would of had better Italian fare at another mass produced Americanized restaurant. I had the pollo parmigiana, keep it simple right… while it was ok it seemed like microwaved chicken. It was dry and chewy. My husband had the pollo Marsala which earned me my first ever compliment. Apparently I make better chicken Marsala which is a sad comparison. The only saving grace was their seafood fare. Our dinner companions ordered pasta el gladiatore which they raved about.
Our waiter barely said two words to us and we spent a large majority of our time sitting and waiting.
We will definitely choose another location for future meals.

Enjoying the brochetta, pizza and pasta. Great location with street view. Good people watching, out door seting. Friendly staff. Tons of Italian locals hanging out. A Pernoi beer tops it all off.

This restaurant was not on our list of places to try but the wait times for all the other spots in the area were ridiculous. We were a little skeptical because there wasn’t a line out the door like everywhere else, but thought we would give it a try. We had a little bit of everything and we were not disappointed. We had the bruschetta as an appi. And then had pizza, rigatoni, and pesto ravioli along with this noodle and seafood combo thing and it was all very delicious. The staff was friendly and service was great. I have no complaints about this place.

My wife and I stopped for lunch here because it had similar ratings to nearby restaurants, but wasn’t as crowded. We learned that the lack of crowds may have been due to the service. Despite only two other couples being there at the time, we still had to wait about 15 minutes for coffee (which came after our salad.) I ordered chicken Marsala (and the waiter repeated my order when I made it, so I know he heard it correctly) but I received chicken parmigiana. It also took a very long time to pay our bill.
That said, the salad, coffee, and chicken parmigiana were very good. The eggplant penne not so much.

Just passing by on Columbus, we knew where to go to eat for later on that night. We get there and take a seat, the place is very well decorated with the scenery of Italy. Big statue remind you of where you are inside the place. Like always oil with bread to start with, then we got a great appetizer plate. It’s had calamari and some small bred with a mix of chopped tomatoes. The peroni on draft was amazing and always a plus with any Italian food. I ordered my casual meal of chicken parmigiana, with pasta. It was supposed to come with vegetables and potatoes but I need pasta. The chicken brest was big and juicy not small like other places make them. The sauce was amazing also very flavorful not bland or watery either. Only downside was the staff very slow to get to you kinda of took a little bit of time. The meatballs were not that appetizing not made fresh and more of a frozen item. But overall great experience at this place.

When my friend and I decided to head to North Beach for some Italian food, I had already written off the experience in my head. Most Italian food is not particularly vegetarian-​friendly (it’s the same mushroom risotto and fettucine alfredo everywhere). So when we randomly chose to walk into Colosseo, I was not expecting anything above the ordinary. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the food.
We ordered the Pappardelle ai Funghi e Tartufo and the Genovese pizza. Both were delicious, and I especially appreciated the pappardelle. Definitely different from boring, routine fare. They also had a lot of options for vegetarians!
The bread they served in the beginning was very average, however. And service was a little spotty, especially considering the restaurant was mostly empty. But still — not a bad place, and not as overpriced as neighboring places.

I enjoy joking with Mauricio owner of Mona Lisa, one of my favorite Italian restaurants in the Bay Area and I especially like Mauricio because his roots are in Calabria in a town some 10 miles north of my Father’s birthplace, Cetraro. Jokingly, I tell him that his wife, Filomena, has better food in the restaurant she manages across the street on Columbus, called il Colosseo. Truth is that the food in both places is excellent. If it is early to late afternoon, we choose Il Colosseo and sit outside or by the window and enjoy the late afternoon sun and with the music, walls painted with Italian scenes, Italian accented waiters and the food, we envision being in a Piazza in Italia. We like many dishes but the Lentil Soup makes me very nostalgic as my Mom made this with a little pasta, conchiglie (little shells), Ditalinni (little fingers) etc. and with bread this was the entire meal. Mauricio always makes us feel like family and his courtesy extended from San Francisco to Calabria where we enjoyed food, homemade wine & lovely views with some of his wife’s family in the quaint seaside town of Santa Maria del Cedro.
What I like doing most at Il Colosseo and Mona Lisa is «Faccendo La Scarpetta» which is enjoying what many in Italia consider the best past of the meal, sopping up the remaining sauces. «Scarpetta» is a little shoe and when it scoops up the sauce it is magical like Cinderella putting on her glass slipper. I prefer the Italian word «Scopa» which means broom. But, I recall my Grandfather telling me that in Southern Italy 100 years ago that many people were so poor and so hungry they felt like eating their shoes (made from leather from animals). Make sure you try some of the delicious Italian bread at these two restaurants to do «La Scarpetta.»
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A tutti gli Italiani che visitano San Francisco: se diventate nostalgico per l’Italia ed alimento Italiano simile al tuo paese, visitate questi due ristoranti. I camerieri, cuochi, proprietari sono simpaticissimi ma soprattutto il cibo è davvero eccellente ! Confesso di aver mangiato meglio di tanti ristoranti in Italia !
Anche quelli di voi da New York, Boston, Chicago ecc. o altre parti del mondo con quartieri di «little Italy», amarete il nostro North Beach anque. I camerieri, cuochi, proprietari sono simpaticissimi ma soprattutto il cibo è davvero eccellente ! Come il nostro Paisano Tony Bennett, Antonio Benedetto, canta che ha perso il suo cuore a San Francisco, voi sarete troppo a a questi due ristoranti.

Nothing too special here. I can see why other places were overflowing with people nearby and Colosseo wasn’t. Customer service is great. Prices are ridiculous.

Typical Italian restaurant.
Food was mediocre. I got the Salmon with asparagus and the salmon wasn’t too soft, but it wasn’t hard or anything. Came with a side of steamed veggies and potatoes.
The appetizers were better. We got the calamaris and bruschetta and it was really good! The plate of appetizers was like another entrée itself.
Their menu has A LOT of variety so it is really difficult to choose from and it takes some time to read through the menu.
Glass of wine is $ 10 each
3 Stars all goes to the atmosphere. We sat outside and there were heaters to keep us warm and it was lovely, eating, chatting, and people watching.
The server was also really nice and made sure that everything at our table was good.

Went here for Valentine’s Day Dinner with two other friends.
The food was actually good, but the service was absolutely horrifying. We ordered drinks and got our appetizers then waited an HOUR to get our food. in which we had to hunt down our waiter to even order a meal.
I understand that it is busy on Valentine’s Day, but they should have the staff to accommodate these needs. We spoke with the manager who gave us a discount and a round of drinks on them, which I thought was extremely professional of them to do. I would love to go back and give a better review.
The part that bothered us the most was that we weren’t served dinner till around 9:30pm when the restaurant was empty so there was no reason for the slow service towards the end.

This is a review of a private event at Colosseo.
We chose Colosseo because of their private event space, professionalism, experience with hosting corporate events, and how easy and willing they were to work with us.
When we walked in to check out Colosseo, the GM Alex was very friendly, helpful, and professional. He showed us the private patio out back (which had heat lamps), was very accommodating in terms of how it could be set up, personalized the menus they would print for our event, and made sure we knew how much he wanted our business. We ended up working with the owner Filomena and her sister Grazia who worked with us to meet all of our requirements for the team dinner of 14 people.
When we arrived, the back patio was set up beautifully. We had the whole space to ourselves, which looked like it could comfortably accommodate 40+ dinner guests. We each had individual antipasto plates. All the entrees were delicious. Desserts were also part of our prix fixe menu. The wines were reasonably priced (around $ 30) and were quite good. The servers were very attentive and friendly. They made us feel like special guests, and we all had a wonderful time.
I would highly recommend Colosseo to anyone interested in hosting a private event. The food is good, and we will also be returning as regular guests!

We held our company team dinner for 15 people tonight. We had an amazing dinner. The good was delicious, authentic and the presentation fantastic.
Generous portions too! We loved the back patio for the privacy. Filimena and entire staff was attentive and wonderful. We loved our singing waiter too! The entire experience was Fantastic! Bravo!

After reading the reviews of their delicious meals at Colosseo from Mike C. (
) and Alan L. (
), I’ve had it down on my North Beach «to try» list.
Arriving there at 5:30pm, we were the first customers for dinner on a recent Thursday. We were greeted by the hostess and were seated at one of the two tables by the window which has a great view of the hustle and bustle of Columbus Ave. Colosseo is fairly large restaurant that can accommodate larger groups, like the party of 9 that came in while we were there.
As were checking out the menu, a basket of soft bread was brought to our table. You can dip it with the EVOO and balsamic vinegar, which is on your table. (
)
After the waiter answered some of our questions we ordered:
Spaghetti del Cardinale (spaghetti tossed with Calabrese sausage and Porcini mushrooms). The fresh pasta was perfectly cooked and tossed in a light cream sauce so as to not mask the stars of the dish, the sausage and mushrooms. The Calabrese sausage was so delicious with a hint of spiciness to it. Porcini mushrooms, who doesn’t like ‘shrooms.
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Pappardelle ai Funghi e Tartufo (pappardelle pasta with Porcini mushrooms and white truffle oil). A delicate dish with a light cream sauce tossed into the fresh ribbons of pappardelle highlighted by the ‘shrooms. (
)
We were very pleased with our delicious pasta dishes. Service was friendly and our water glasses were filled. Colosseo is on our list for a return visit in the near future.

My family went here for our first night in the city. 2 of us are gluten free, so we were ecstatic to see all of the gf options on the menu. The gf pizza was fantastic, and the gf pasta was absolutely amazing!!! We all loved our meals and would definitely go back!
They were very crowded, so it was a little hard to get our waiter’s attention a few times throughout the meal. It was very hands off, and the food took a while to come out, but I thought it made the evening relaxing.

It was probably a fluke the very first time I came to eat here, but this was my unfortunate experience.
My friend’s boyfriend was kind enough to make reservations (7:15 pm) here to help us «carb load» — we were all doing the Nike Women’s Half Marathon. We arrive and I check in to receive the free bruschetta, which was pretty damn delicious — it was a crunchy break topped with diced tomatoes that must have been drenched in awesome sauce (I’d recommend it). We probably ordered around 730 pm. Nothing arrived for over an hour, and so we finally asked because I feel that pasta should NOT take THAT long. The reason being the written order was not transcribed onto a printed order because the printer ran out of paper. Apologetically, the restaurant gave us the bruschetta and also some calamari, which was also yummy and subdued our crying tummies temporarily.
Again, we asked where our food was and finally it came at 9:00 pm. By then, most of us were not hungry and just tired. I ordered the spaghetti with egg in it and it was salty. I decided to put lemon in it to make it less salty, but it didn’t really work. I didn’t eat much of it. One of my friends actually returned one of her plates because it was pure salt.
We weren’t happy and wanted to just leave. The restaurant manager graciously offered dessert and coffee, but we declined and proposed another offer. Long story short, we got 50% off our bill.
They were nice about it all, but I may probably not be back again.

We celebrated a birthday here tonight and had so much fun. Our waiter Roberto took great care of us and sang happy birthday in Italian. Luca was playing the guitar tonight and took requests from the birthday girl. If you check in on Unilocal you get a complimentary appetizer which consists of bruschetta and calamari. We each ordered a pasta dish and they were served hot and super delicious. Very authentic. I had salmon far flake in a tomato sauce and the salmon was prepared 2 ways in that dish! My friend got rigatoni and said it was great and the arabato also got rave reviews.
It’s Italian owned and has an Italian wait staff. It’s true that calzones next door had more people but this place didn’t do badly either for a Wednesday night; lots of uniformed men in town for fleet week and there were 6 at the bar.
We can’t wait to come back and would recommend to others.

Yum! I really enjoyed this cute find in North Beach. I was really craving some Italian food and what better way to find it in the city than North Beach. Instead of looking up a place ahead of time, we decided to walk around and find a place that looked the nicest (and had the shortest wait time on a Saturday night haha). We stumbled across Colesseo which had huge Italian soldier statue right at the entrance to the restaurant. Looked like a good place to us so we decided to give it a shot!
I started off with a glass of the house Riesling — it was light and very yummy. The brought out bread for the table and to our surprise, it was not Italian bread, it was actually sour dough. It was a little odd combination to have sourdough bread with oil and vinegar, but I guess that was their SF twist to the bread. For our main dishes, we ordered the mushroom risotto and the asparagus ravioli.
Mushroom risotto: Tasted like most I’ve had, very creamy and the taste of the fresh mushrooms was very apparent. It wasn’t anything new or special so if you’re in the mood to try something different, I wouldn’t recommend this.
Asparagus ravioli: This was my favorite dish of the night. It was so delicious and yummy. There was fresh asparagus stuffed in the ravioli, and it was all doused in a creamy white sauce, topped with asparagus as well. If you can’t tell, I’m a fan of asparagus. I really enjoyed this dish, even though it did get a little heavy at the end with all the cream and cheese.
For dessert, we tried the Fresh strawberries and cream cake. It was delicious! It was a fresh vanilla cake with a fresh strawberry filling, with a light whipped cream frosting on top. It was a great end to the meal!
I would definitely recommend this place to anyone looking to go to North Beach for a meal. The menu is extensive so I will definitely be back again to try one of their other dishes.
Side note about the service: The night we went, the service was not the best. The servers were kind of slow in taking our order, bring out the food, and bringing the check. That’s an area of improvement that could definitely help the quality of the restaurant.

Not a bad place for Italian food. Came in on a Saturday at noon. I really have nothing to complain about.
The food was good, not the best Italian I’ve ever had, but it was still good.
Suppli alla romana (3.5 stars): it was an interesting dish. It’s rice, beef, and cheese fried together served delicious tomato and a fresh salad with delicious olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. I’m not sure if I would get it again, but this was the first time I ever had it and it was interesting.
Risotto with mushroom (4 stars): this is a vegetarian dish and I love mushroom risotto. This was good, creamy, and hot. I would definitely recommend this dish to vegetarians or mushroom lovers like myself.
Risotto with seafood (3.5 stars): the sauce was arabiatta I think. The sauce was interesting because I never tasted it before; however, the seafood was cooked which made this dish even better.
Overall, the portions were generous enough that it can justify the price.
The service (5 stars): the main waiter and the secondary waiter were excellent. The waiters kept our waters filled and they were attentive throughout the meal, asking if we want more bread and they kept our table relatively clean from dirty dishes. They were extremely nice and polite so keep up the good work!
Would I go back? Yes. Colosseo has beautiful décor and the ambience is quiet and pleasant.