SOFIA 3rd Ave Reviews

Sophia‘s used to be my family’s very favorite restaurant. We would go at least once a month. So much has changed. it went from my favorite to my least favorite . First of all, they decreased the staff, and the food quality has gone downhill. After not going for about three years, we decided to give it a chance today, what a mistake. I ordered chicken marsala and it tasted bland. and even a little odd. I didn’t complain, I just didn’t eat it. When I got home, I got so sick. Never again!

I only say hidden because of the plethora of restaurants in Bay Ridge. I was walking by, not knowing what I was in the mood to eat for dinner. Had to eat out, as I am here on business. The restaurant caught my eye so I went in and asked to take a look at the menu. Italian restaurant with a nice fish offering. The tuna steak reeled me in. Food and wine was excellent. Will definitely put it on my list of restaurants to revisit. I want to taste everything they have. Reasonably priced. Highly recommended!

It was attending a 80yr old birthday late lunch. We ordered set lunch menu which comes with appetizer. All 3 appetizer were a disaster. The mozzarella cheese were freeze & thaw before, the cheese fillings in eggplant rollatini has turn moldy, taste bitter, and the fried calamari were under fry, too oily to be served.

7 of us went out to celebrate a friends birthday,,,From the moment we arrived we were welcomed by Franco,,,he was so accommodating,,,he was our bartender,waiter and photographer,,,,everything was delicious,,,everyone was happy and enjoying themselves,,,,Thank you Sofia’s and a special thank you to Franco

Our hotel receptionist recommended Sofia's which was very busy at the weekend. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal and the atmosphere and returned there a few days later.

If you are in Brooklyn, you have to try this restaurant! I never give five stars but there is just no downside to this restaurant. We have been here several times in the past. The place is not that big, typical of the city, and reservations would be a good idea. We have a group of 4 to 10, ordering different drinks, appetizers and main courses. There just was nothing we didn't like and if you have a special request, they will fill it. The prices for both main meals and bottles of wine are reasonable. if you want to walk afterwards, go towards Shore Road to check out some beautiful houses while walking off dinner. I have to give a shout out to our waiter, Franco, who was wonderful, helpful, fun and very very efficient. Definitely will go back whenever we are in the area.

My girlfriends and I ate here before the Bike NY 5 Boro 40 Mile Ride the other day and loved it. The service, food, variety on the menu and reasonable prices are the reason I rate it five stars. We all had different dishes and everyone liked what they had. The waiter was attentive but not overly attentive.

The servers, kitchen staff cooking (prior dine-in and winter takeout) dishes, and the owner do not wear a mask and pulls them down to serve patrons. City health inspector(s) were called from multiple cases.

We went to Sofia's on August 26th for my Grandpa's 90th birthday. It was my wife and I, my parents, my Grandpa and my 2 year old daughter. The food was pretty good. We shared appetizers which were OK but the meals were well worth it. The waiter, Franco, is great and really entertained my daughter and took care of her. Ask for him as your waiter if you go. Parking was pretty easy on side streets (I took the subway from work). Desserts were very good also. One drawback is the main bathrooms are downstairs which is hard for an elderly person, so they do have an employee bathroom upstairs that we utilized, but it is not kept the greatest - but it was nice they let us use it for my Grandpa. All in all a nice experience to celebrate my Grandpas birthday.

Liked the place. Friendly people. Standard American Italian menu, but some interesting specials. Noteworthy are the Dover Sole and the some of the best Penne Vodka I ever had. Was there 3 times in Feb and would go again. One of the better ones in Bayridge.

We are regulars at this fine establishment. Our family celebrates everything there. The staff is wonderful and the food can't be any better.

My husband & I have been here 3 times. Every meal was wonderful-service is outstanding, truly nice, but not intrusive. The check is always surprisingly low, also. We're going back next week.

I loved Sofia’s and always wrote good reviews. However, my last time there it was a huge disappointment. The clam appetizer was ridiculous. The clams were about the size of a nickel. Obscenely small. Shrimp were flavorless. The prices aren’t cheap. Our waiter, was great. Margarita was like drinking kerosene-I’m sure the tequila was awful. Undrinkable. The waiter realized I wasn’t drinking it and removed it from the tab. I hope Sofia goes back to the way it used to be years ago. I’m not willing to spend another $120 to find out if they’ve improved.

This was our 3rd or 4th time at Sofia, and we've always enjoyed ourselves. The service is great - attentive but not overly so. The food is great-try the poached pear dessert-my favorite. The prices are reasonable-we always get away under $100, and that's with 2 appys, 2 entrees, at least 1 dessert, and 2 or 3 drinks (total).

We celebrated a family event in the Sophia restaurant this January. And it was very pleasant experience. – Valet parking – Cozy interior – Menu has a lot of options: pasta, fish, meat, etc – Full bar – Very friendly and fast service The only remark I have – the dessert menu could be a little bit more sophisticated. But overall everything was good. Definitely I’ll keep it on my list.

Sofia is located in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn. The food and service are excellent. There is a small bar at the front. The seafood and homemade pasta dishes are very tasty and cooked according to expectations. The baked clams are lemony, the spinach ravioli is served in a fresh tomato marinara sauce, and the many choices of fresh fish are served in any style you want. The wine and drinks from the full bar are very good. Reservations are usually needed on Fridays and Saturdays for dinner.

The atmosphere was great. The staff spoke with huge accents that you couldn't understand. We were there on a Monday so it wasn't crowded at all yet we always had to wait long periods for the waiter to come. We were 8 people with only 7 orders of main courses, 5 orders of appetizers, 5 orders of desserts, 3 glasses of wine, 4 bottles of beer, and a bill of $500!!!! We would have given a poor tip but they already add on a 20% tip so they know ahead of time they can have poor service because they are still going to get a good tip. The food was decent but the place was way overpriced and bad service.

Saturday was our 18th anniversary and my husband wanted to try a new place to celebrate so we chose Sofia. Big mistake! I made reservations for 7pm because I knew this time of year was hard to get in to some places. We ran in to the restaurant and it was crowded. We were "escorted" to a table for two that had one chair and was in the middle of traffic. My husband was not happy with the arrangement since there was an empty, roomy table right next to us. i had laryngitus and my husband is hard of hearing so ordering was a challenge and the waiter had no patience. It took at least 5 minutes to get a chair and set up- sans salt and pepper. The restaurant is small and it was busy. If you were a "regular" or young and pretty you were treated differently. We are a senior couple so are neither. The elderly harried waiter recommended a wine salad---big mistake again. There was no flavor at all and i ordered it because it had pears--what they don't tell you is that the pears are canned and stale and it had a nondescript endive with slivers of parmesan cheese. I had the carbonara and my husband had a steak with portobello mushrooms--bit it came with nothing else. I asked for a dessert menu and the waiter rattled off two or three things so I just ordered a double espresso. All around us people were receiving free drinks and desserts and attention. They did not even give me an anisette to go with the espresso! Our bill was hefty--over $100 so they could have given us the drink. I had an adequate vodka martini and my husband had two pepsi's in a wine glass that cost us $6.00. All in all it was a terribly disappointing experience. In the future we will go back to old "stand -bys"--Thank you Sofia for

Adult son and I ate in this pretty place a couple of Sundays ago. It is close to his apt in Brooklyn and it was lunchtime and we hadn't tried the place. Son was disappointed in the beer choices (he got a Stella Artois) as he is a big beer connosieur (he is an illustrator for a beer distributor in Brooklyn) but a minor matter. I got some pinot grigio (house) 2nd glass they gave me a very generous pour. I wish I could remember (its been a couple of weeks) what we ate. We both enjoyed our food alot but we both felt the service was extremely slow even though there was one other couple in the place. They were getting ready for a young girl's communion party but other than that someone should have been attentive to us and our needs. When we wanted the bill we gave up and twice son tried to find someone to ask for the bill! We were able to sit at the window and people watch which was fun.

Can't go wrong with this Italian restaurant! Friendly, but not bothersome waiters. Willing to substitute items. Nice seating except by kitchen. Ask for table in front on the avenue

We are native Bay Ridge people and love to walk on 3rd Avenue and pick places that appeal to us. We'd been to Sofia before and decided to see how they are "keeping up". First of all, they have their "A" rating from the health department. That's a sine qua non for us. No "A" = no patronage. We both had their escarole and bean soup, which was obviously homemade and not from a can, unless we were well deceived. In any event, it was 1st class. My wife had spinach ravioli as a main course and I the filet of fish stuffed with shrimp. She liked hers, and mine was really top shelf. I am sorry that I filled up on soup because I was unable to finish the generous and delicious portion that was served. We had both asked for cabernet by the glass. When the check came, we noticed that the tab was broken down by food and beverage. While the food was only $50, the tab for (4) glasses of cabernet was $59. WTF? That's almost $15 per glass. My fault, however. They can charge whatever they want. I should have asked the price up front. You can bet I will when we return. That's not enough to keep us away, as we have been abused worse than this by liquour prices in other establishments. A word, to the wise, should be sufficient. We skipped dessert for dietary reasons, and had decaf cappucino's (bad Italian, I know, but I'm writing in English) instead. Smooth, frothy, and just how we like it.

We recently had a surprise birthday dinner for my cousins 80th birthday. My cousin was quite surprised and very happy with the surprise dinner. The food was very good, Definitely a notch above your typical Italian restaurant. We started with a hot and cold antipasti. It was so good we had to order 2 more servings. The entrees were all well plated. I had white bass which I had not had before; it was very good. For dessert we ordered a birthday cake which was also very good. The only issue we had was we had requested the antipasti to be served individually and not family style because 1/2 the table didn't know each other. For some reason our request was not acknowledged. Overall a pleasant dining experience. I would return again for dinner.

This is my families very favorite restaurant. It feels like home to us. Our favorite waiter Andy doesn't even have to take our order anymore. He knows exactly what We like to eat. We love this place.

Nicely flavored Italian classics and some original dishes. Love the pasta Bolognese, chicken cutlet parmesian and eggplant rollatini. Dishes are tasty, large and the service is excellent.

5 of us went to dinner and had a great time. The staff was so friendly and could not do enough to make sure we enjoyed our selves. The brought out a plate of pepperoni and cheese to snack on before we even ordered. Everyone's food came out hot. I had the chicken parm which wasn't on the menu but the made it for me when I asked. It was very very good. Had it with the angle hair pasta. Everyone's meals were great. I recommend this place of your in the area and want good Italian food.

Nice quiet romantic restaurant in the middle of Bay Ridge; for smokers you can take a chair and sit outside

Giving this place two stars is actually a generous rating for the experience I had at this restaurant. The two stars are for the decor, certainly not the food or service. Although my friends said some of the food tasted okay (mine was awful), we all agreed that the quality of all the food did not match the high prices. I met my 3 friends here and started the night with a busboy who didn't speak or understand English well enough to understand anything we requested. Our waiter also had a very thick accent which made it very difficult to understand him especially over the extremely loud music blasting through the speakers. We tried to ignore the loud music and simply attributed the barrier in our English-Italian exchanges to the charm of an Italian restaurant despite how annoying it was at times. When we received our food we discovered the meat dishes came with only the meat on the dish (mine was salmon so completely smothered and swimming in a lake of dark gravy that the fish was not seen at all in any way). The vegetables and roast potatoes that were ordered with my salmon meal were put on a separate plate and placed in the middle of the table. When I reached for the plate I was stopped by our waiter who informed me that the plate of food was meant for all 4 people to share even though there was only enough veggies and potatoes for 2 people. The other bizarre part of this situation was that 2 of my friends ordered pasta dishes that don't usually get served with any side dishes. Once I started to eat my salmon I discovered why it was smothered in a gravy that would usually be served with red meat. The gravy was a thick dark brown sauce with a very overpowering awful flavor certainly not meant for fish. It was used because the salmon was not fresh. The fish felt mushy as I bit into it. I tried to smell and examine the fish for freshness but there was so much gravy that it quickly poured over the rest of the fish every time I parted a piece off with my fork. But the lighting in the place was so dark I probably wouldn't have been able to see much of the fish anyway. The pungent smell of the gravy completely covered any fishy smell. I didn't send the food back for fear of what might be done to the newly ordered food. When it was time to order the dessert, there were no menus offered. Instead the waiter told us he can recite the list to us which was a list long enough that we all wondered why they didn't have a menu for the desserts. But of course he didn't mention any prices for the desserts. When we received the bill, nothing was itemized even though the waiter understood we were all paying for our own food. It took us quite some time to decipher the waiters awful handwriting and ask him specifically what every item cost because he grouped several items together making it difficult to know what separate items cost. The only good things about this place were the Tiramisu, the Cannolis and leaving this restaurant.

Went to dinner with friends. Kept it simple. Mussels came in more of a thin soup rather than a thick tangy ragu. Entree was the same. No flavor or taste in the red sauce. Service was mediocre. Other people were satisfied with their meals but not me.

I have been here multiple times. It is on my list of places where I’ve eaten a life-changing meal. Until I ate at Sofia for the first time, I didn’t know that Italian food could have such nuance, such subtle flavor. Everything is incredible. Honestly, I should stop trying to describe it because there are just no adjectives that could adequately relate what the food is like. Simply put, it’s worth it. And if you eat there, you might as well get coffee and a cannoli after dinner. No, better put, you’ll disappoint yourself if you don’t.

Good music, decent food, and nice atmosphere.

We were two families of 4 each with kids, the service was on par only thing that took long was the check. Bill was 180 for 7 MAIN COURSES & a bottle of wine so as for price it's pretty damn good in my book unless your dirt cheap lol. Also the food the most important part was excellent that we marked it a favorite new stop. Fish to pasta are the specialities and it showed. The photo posted is not current and the place looks like a gourmet manhattan restaurant with outside seating. Enjoy!

i really enjoyed eating here. the food was amazing ! the service was top notch as the waiters keep your glasses full and are very helpful. it is a great place for a romantic dinner with that special someone. i would return here for sure !

When we walked in for I lunch I wasn’t sure what to expect because it was empty. However, the food was not only exc exceptional but so was the service. Both my children love it and ask to go there all the time. Needless to say, we have gone back several times and yet to be disappointed.