The Illiano's Grill in Yantic is MY favorite of all the Illiano's Restaurants in the area. We have been dining here for at least 10 years although we do some take out from the Colchester store. I do believe they are all (extended family) family owned. Their menus do differ a bit. They are all wonderful restaurants but Yantic is MY personal favorite. A dozen fresh Cherrystone Clams on a bed of pasta and FRESH sliced aromatic Garlic...OH yes!..The Garlic White Clam sauce over Linguini is the best I EVER had. I get cravings for this!!! The house salad is always fresh/crisp with beautiful olives adorning it! And wonderful hearty bread for dipping. This restaurant has a clean, comfortable, intimate and relaxed pretty dining room. Illiano's Grill is reasonably priced; great quality food, great quality service! EVERYTHING is always perfect! The owner is always very pleasant and accommodating to his guests. He cares!!! I prefer family owned restaurants to corporation owned chains any day! My family and friends have celebrated many wonderful occassions and memories here. :) If you want a satisfying experience with hospitality, great quality food at reasonable prices; go where the locals go! Thank YOU Illiano's Grill Yantic!!!!!! , read more

Drove down from Boston to visit our newborn Grandchild/ Decided to have dinner here based on location and good reviews . Starting with the English Waiter who was very articulate and knowledgeable about the menu,we found the food( we both ordered fish) to be outstanding. It was as good as any North End (Boston) restaurant at a great price. read more

We have dined in and ordered take-out from Illiano's many times because I LOVE their Vodka Penne, and we usually order meals. Tonight I stopped in to pick up a couple pizzas so I didn't have to cook. YUCK, YUCK, YUCK! We ordered one large cheese with bacon and one large BBQ chicken pizza. The cheese pizza had barely any pizza sauce and not a whole lot of cheese either - a fair amount of bacon, but the dough was soggy. The BBQ chicken pizza was the most disappointing.....My husband opened the box and asked "what the heck is this?" It looked like it had chopped hot dogs and ketchup spread out on it. It kind of smelled like that too! $38 on pizza, which most of the family would not eat....my husband and I had one slice and threw the rest away.....Nasty pizza. Their meals are very good and the staff is friendly, but I would not recommend the pizza. Disappointed!! read more

Great pizza, great service, reasonable prices. A clear winner. We particularly enjoyed visiting with our server Jennifer A. And in today's massacring of the language and meanings........a 'you're welcome' instead of the annoying and thoughtless 'no problem.' A real local gem. read more

The food is great. The portions are fairly large- we ordered 2 entrees for 3 people. I ordered pasta fagioli for myself, and it was very good. The rest of my family ordered pasta and we shared the large servings. One of the pastas was the Italian Festival. It was a combination of manicotti and ravioli. The sauce was good - not too acidic or overpowering. The other pasta dish we ordered was the pasta alla Boscaiola - which had portabella mushrooms. That dish was also good. Overall, our meal was delicious. read more

Stopped here while on vacation. Plus that it was 5 minutes away from where we were staying! The Illiano's Salad was luxurious and had an artichoke heart on it that was obviously made in house. Husband had spaghetti and meatballs - excellent sauce. The Margherita pizza was disappointing. Pizza was lukewarm with unmelted cheese and actually pretty flavorless. I recommend the place - just not the pizza I had! read more

My boyfriend and I ordered pizza for pickup last week and it was horrible! I have heard this place was amazing and it had gluten free pizza so we gave it a shot. After a long day of work, we sat down to eat and it was not even cooked all the way. Looks like they threw all the ingredients in the middle and baked it in a rush. Unfortunately we will continue to order dominos as they have consistent pizza and a gluten free option. read more

Food is disgusting and way over priced. Gave them a second chance, huge mistake!!! Will never, ever go again.

I used to go there all the time on my lunch break, but not anymore. The pizza by the slice on display doesn't look fresh at all, and is usually mediocre. The worst was a few weeks ago when I ordered spaghetti and meatballs in the lunch portion. When I got back to work and opened it, I found watery pasta with ONE average sized meatball! I called them immediately, and was told that's the lunch portion. To me it seemed pretty lame for $10, but whatever. Then I tried to eat it. The first thing I noticed was that the meatball was like rubber. I could hardly get the plastic fork through it. I'm guessing it had already been reheated several times. But that's not the worst part... the taste was just awful. It literally tasted like spicy sausage and dishwater. I had 20 minutes left of my hour long lunch break, so I brought it back for a refund. The manager (owner?) kept asking what was wrong, and I kept telling him it just tasted bad. He repeatedly tried to talk me into ordering something else, and I repeatedly explained that I was out of time and needed to get back to work. He snapped at me that I didn't want to communicate with him. What?! No, I just don't want to pay $10 for something gross that I can't eat, and I've wasted my entire lunch break! I asked for a receipt for the refund (because I had paid with a debit card) and he just held it up and said, "what?! It's right here!" I had to get back to work so I didn't have time to argue. The refund did go through. The whole experience completely turned me off of that place for good. I'll be generous and give three stars because when it's fresh, the food is pretty good, and the staff is pretty friendly too... but it seems to be more miss than hit, and there's many other restaurants around, so I'll go elsewhere. read more

My friend and I were at the restaurant a couple of weeks ago enjoying a slice of pizza. My friend notices some black bug crawling on his slice of pizza. The waitress is called over. She apologizes profusely. She brings over the owner (older man, salt and pepper hair, heavy accent). He proceeds to tell us that there's no possible way the bug could have been baked in the ovens due to the high temp etc. Not a problem. My friend is grossed out and we decide we're done eating. The owner then says that because the pizza is going to be thrown out (we didn't want it at that point), he has to charge us half for the pizza. My friend paid...yes, he paid and we left. It's unfortunate that the owner was so unprofessional. We will never return and we will discourage anyone else we know from returning. The waitress was great. The other employees were all great. The owner needs a lesson in how to deal with customers. read more

First my family and I came here and sat down for dinner. The waitress was very nice and therefore I added an extra star. However, the food was a solid 2 stars. We ordered an Italian Stromboli. It was undercooked and bland. The onions and green peppers were not cooked through and none of the flavors had time to meld together. Sub par at best. Later, we decided to pop in for a quick slice of pizza. I felt like I was in a Seinfeld episode. When you walk in they have a counter and pizza display for easy take out along with booths up front which we assumed was for normal pizza joint quick eating. They also have the back dining area where you can sit down and enjoy full service... BUT upon entering and trying to order a few slices at the counter we soon realized that you cannot order up front and eat at your own will in the booths provided. They insisted we had to have a waitress. They said it was the same thing and I disagree. Sometimes no one wants the whole shebang! Waitress, drinks, waiting for the check, etc. after some confusion we decided to take it to go and I ordered a white pizza slice. We got home and my white pizza slice was actually a huge blob of blue cheese. I should have looked more closely but who would have thought?! I expected ricotta and motz like any self respecting Italian. Will not be returning! I have no more words. read more