The parent company of Chili’s, which previously launched It’s Just Wings, recently added another ghost kitchen called Maggiano’s Italian Classics. It’s an offshoot of another restaurant in the same family, Maggiano’s Little Italy.
My favorite dish was the spaghetti & meatball ($12.99). The giant meatball was moist and tasty–I would love to have a few of them on a hoagie. As a pleasant surprise, you also get meat sauce–not plain marinara sauce–and it, too, was quite flavorful.
Meanwhile, the baked penne ($12.99) was just okay. It needed more ground sausage, sauce and perhaps one more ingredient. To me, it felt like a lazy dish I would make if I was short of time.
The chicken parmesan ($15.99) looked overdone, but it was perfect. The chicken was tender with a delicious and right amount of breading. Similar to the other penne dish, the accompanying penne pasta needed a lot more sauce, as many times I was eating plain noodles.
All the dishes came with a single breadstick that was hard and stale.
For desserts, Maggiano’s offers a variety of hand pies ($3), similar in size to a Hostess fruit pie. I tried the Hershey’s double chocolate, caramel pecan and blueberry lemon flavors, and they all were phenomenal. Each has a flaky crust with a wonderfully sweet filling inside.
During lunch, the entrees come in a lunch-sized portion along with a salad.
Maggiano’s Italian Classics is open every day for lunch (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and dinner through DoorDash.
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See more photos in our Maggiano’s Italian Classics Flickr album.
