By Brennan Heims

When you are craving Italian food, what is the first place that comes to mind? That place for me is Maldini’s Ristorante Pizzeria in the Forest Hill neighborhood. Maldini’s was constructed and opened in 2007, so I have been visiting this restaurant my whole life, whether it was coming home late, and it’s the only restaurant open, or just walking over to grab food for lunch in the middle of the summer. 

Maldini’s storefront. Photo credit: Brennan Heims.

When you enter, you immediately understand the energy that Marcello Armetta, owner of Maldini’s, is going for. The restaurant has old Italian paintings and other artifacts hung across the walls. One side of the establishment has been turned into an Italian market. On a recent visit, our group of three had a large amount of time to analyze the paintings, since we waited for well over an hour for our food.

Aside from the environment, a staple of any Italian restaurant is the appetizer served to every customer: bread. Our server skimped out on our table’s bread, only allowing us one piece per person. Our solution to receiving small amounts of bread was to order an extra appetizer, bruschetta ($10.50), which is a crunchy piece of bread covered in vinegar and other oils, and topped with tomatoes. While it looked pretty, the flavor was rather bland, according to Sam Beckler (‘25). 

Bruschetta at Maldini’s. Photo credit: Brennan Heims.

When it came around to ordering our main entrés, I ordered spaghetti ($14.70), Jack Smith (‘25) ordered cheese pizza with bacon ($12.50), and Beckler ordered shrimp pasta. My spaghetti was overly moist, but besides that, it had an authentic taste. The pizza was built with a thin crust and an even layer of cheese spread across the slices, with bacon spread throughout. Smith says “The tomato sauce was excellent, but the consistency of the dough was off, resulting in the pizza drooping.” Beckler’s shrimp pasta ($20.95) was placed on our table at near boiling temperature, but once it cooled down the taste of the entrée was delicate but rich. Beckler says “that the noodles being cooked to perfection makes up for the fact that his shrimp was overcooked,” making it quite firm.

In a review of Maldini’s on Yelp, Richmond local Racquel Taylor, said, “Pizza is great, Horrible Lasagna. The sauce was orange, with eggplant which I didn’t ask for a Veggie lasagna. I have never heard of eggplant in meat lasagna.” I agree with Taylor in the sense that there are some foods that Maldini’s makes to perfection, versus other foods that are poorly made.                 

Once we finished, the consensus of the table was that our meals were adequate, and that Maldini’s is a restaurant that you visit depending on the occasion. If you want to spend time with your family or friends on a nice afternoon, you should visit Maldini’s. Maldini’s will continue to be a place I eat at when it is late at night, or when I want to sit down and talk and escape from the fast pace of every other restaurant.