Mangiafoglie

I came all the way from Santa Monica to meet a friend there and it was well worth it! The young lady server was super sweet. Our sandwiches were fantastic and the salads were good as well...and oh that vanilla gelato!!

First off, the service here is amazing. The waitress came by so often to make sure that we had everything that we needed. There was never even a glass of water that was left dry or halfway. The restaurant itself is really tiny with a very small limited amount of indoor seating. They have a little bit more room outside in the patio, but the problem is on those chilly or rainy or windy night. The patio will become unusable. Now for the food, I recommend that you go family style and each person orders a dish and then split it amongst everybody that is there in order to get the full experience. Everything here is vegan from the meat. It’s actually not meat it’s made from other things like the shrimp is made from a fruit and it actually taste like shrimp. The sausage too is made from other products, but there is actually no meat product in that sausage our party ordered two pizzas one was sausage. The other one was the fig and order two different pastas, spicy sausage pasta, and the lemon pasta. Everything was delicious. Very tasty personally for me a little on the salty side, but everybody else thought it was perfectly fine. as for starters, we had the cuoppo which tasted like shrimps, but was actually not shrimps and had potato balls in it too along with that we had a Caesar salad which is seasoned right and for dessert definitely take the olive oil cake and the tartlette if they have it

Excellent pasta! I really enjoyed the spicy one, however I can’t remember what it was called because their menu was all in Italian. The waitress was nice and explained what a couple of the dishes were though lol. This place is a little more on the high end and I didn’t really feel like the portion size was worth the price.

I was on my way to a traditional Italian restaurant, but told my Lyft driver that I really was looking for some vegan food. He told me about this place and took me there. Let's just say this was the best detour. I cannot stress how fresh the food is. I went alone, but if you have a group or another person who enjoys vegan food, take them with you! Most plates are sharable. I started with the meatballs and it was evident that the chef created the entire recipe, including the recipe for the meatballs. This is not something you can get anywhere else! They were dense, yet delicate and the tomato sauce was so fresh! Also the bread that came with it was grilled to perfection, crispy and flaky and was great for dipping in the sauce of the meatballs. I had the lasagna for my entree and it is cooked to order (30 minutes) but was so well worth it. Again everything about it was made from scratch and the sauce had a slight kick to it which increased the savoriness of the dish. I could only finish half but each bite was so delectable! I arrived right before the rush of people came. Lots of tables ordered the salads which were beautifully constructed and the tables shared them because of their size. I also saw lots of people ordering the pizza, which the chef was making using his own dough recipe before sliding it into a brick oven. Whenever I am in the area again, this is a must for me. It's hard for me to get vegan food this delicious near me, it's often treated as an afterthought. Just to be clear I am an omnivore and enjoy red meat very much, but nothing beats a great vegetarian or vegan meal when done well. At Mangiafoglie, the chef does it exceptionally well. I also took a slice of the olive oil cake to go and it was so delicious. It was fluffy and the sweetness was just right.

Our first visit here a month ago was fantastic. We had an incredible waiter who explained the menu in detail (even describing certain dishes as “mute” for milder flavors). We ordered the meatballs, and they were unforgettable steaming hot, perfectly textured, with sauce that was spot-on and hearty, brick-oven bread that was fluffy inside and toasted just right. We literally talked about it all the way home. We also tried a pasta dish, which wasn’t really our style, but overall the experience was great. Fast forward to our second visit, and it was a complete 180. We called on the way since GPS said we’d arrive at 8:35 p.m. The person who answered assured us that wasn’t too late. My daughter went in first and ordered the meatballs with extra bread, but the waitress greeted her with attitude, snapping that they close at 9. When I came in and asked about a pizza I’d seen in a review, I showed her a photo. She identified which one it was, and when I asked what vegan cheese they used, she cut me off sharply with, “We make our own.” I asked what it was made of, and she snapped, “Coconut oil.” As a vegan chef, I was already skeptical that’s not even a proper cheese base. The tone alone should have been a red flag. When the meatballs arrived, they were lukewarm, not hot and fresh like before. The bread was even worse: all end pieces, stale, chewy, and tough, basically the throwaway scraps you’d give out at the end of the night. Nothing like the fluffy, toasted bread we had on our first visit. Then came the pizza. And tell me if I’m crazy, but the build was completely off: crust, sauce, meat, and then a thick layer of cheese on top. This wasn’t a deep dish, so it made no sense, it just felt careless, like “throw something together and serve it.” The final straw was when we were packing up the meatballs to reheat at home, and the waitress just grabbed the pizza off the table without asking. We had only each taken one bite, and she never asked if we wanted it wrapped up, if we were done, or if there was an issue. We thought maybe she was taking it to box it, but nope, it just disappeared. The diabolical part is it still showed up on the bill. From the best vegan meatballs worth driving 35 minutes for, to an experience that was flat out nasty, in food quality and service this place lost us completely. We will not be back. (Photo: Sauce appears cold, bread looks thin and dry)