Ristorante MV

   "A phenomenal dining experience from start to finish! The pasta and baked claims was cooked to perfection with incredible flavor combinations, and our server, was incredibly attentive , the drinks never disappoints.. Highly recommend this gem...

Food, Service and Atmosphere all deserve 5 stars. Food was great, even though my wife had a very small issue with her main course. They comped way more things than they needed to for us (I tried refusing them from taking anything off the bill it was such a minor issue!) our server Rich was great and so was the manager Mike. We went here on our anniversary and would recommend going here for any special occasion!

EXCELLENT! I had a bite to eat at the MV tavern , I sat at the bar . The Tavern is located behind the main restaurant it was warm cozy and had a Hi End vibe . Also it was busy and everyone seemed to be enjoying . Service was Excellent! Their menu and plates was just what I was looking for while passing through town . I would definitely recommend MV and would love to go back ! I am interested to try the main restaurant . Desert Was EXCELLENT ! 😊

The food and service are both amazing! The meals are unique without trying to be different. It is an excellent restaurant!

My family and I have been to Ristorante MV a few times however this was my first time dining on their Trattoria side [Important to note: if you have a reservation, you will enter in the lower portion of the restaurant where the little VW Beetle is parked. If you don’t have a reservation and want to sit at the bar/high top tables, you can go into the Trattoria side right next to the valet that has a smaller menu than the regular restaurant. The Trattoria side is first come, first serve, and it does get packed.] Parking: there is valet parking and very limited street parking (almost none). The valet is free however don’t forget to tip! SERVICE: - We were promptly greeted by our server who said the tables and bar were seat yourself. We had arrived around 5:45-6 and there were more bar seats than table tops available on a Friday, and we sat at a high top. Our server, and older gentleman, was great (didn’t write down a single thing and everything came out correct - quite impressive). He had great recommendations and was very friendly without being overbearing. Between our server and the buss boy, we were well taken care of with food and drinks. It was also very refreshing to see that the Trattoria seemed to have quite a few “regulars” - great to see at a restaurant. APPETIZERS: 1. Mozzarella “Croccante” | Rating: 5/5 - absolutely to die for. If there’s one dish to start off your dining experience, it’s this. The breading on the outside was light as well as the sauce. The mozzarella was fried to perfection, probably some of the best we’ve ever had! 2. Fritturo Di Calamari | Rating: 5/5 - super crispy and lightly fried, great portion for a table of 4. Came out piping hot. ENTREES: 1. Baked Fuscilli Pasta | Rating: 5/5 - the pasta was cooked to perfection in the middle with a crispy outer layer smothered in mozzarella. Delicious! 2. Penne Rigati | Rating: 5/5 - SPICY as it states but delicious. Full of spicy flavor from the peppers (which you can ask to omit), and the garlic was a great addition to the flavors of the pasta. 3. Eggplant | Rating: 5/5 - exceptional, super flavorful and delicious. The eggplant had a great crisp to it as well and that sauce is just to die for. DESSERT: 1. Cannoli | Rating: 5/5 - light and delicious to split with the table. The fruit was super fresh and sweet too (and this was in April 2024). Highly recommend as a dish to share. DRINKS: - My table did order drinks and said they were spectacular. The right amount of alcohol and mixers in their martini and pear drink. Overall, if you haven’t tried Ristorante MV and want to, you absolutely need to dine at both the Ristorante and Trattoria - they offer different but similar menus and the food is out of this world - fresh, flavorful, and piping hot. The drinks and bar are fabulous and overall just a really elevated establishment. Highly recommend.

What a great find - a casual place with amazing food, a great atmosphere and awesome service. Went on a Friday for happy hour where they have select wines and select bottled beers (not draught) reasonably priced. They have an extensive selection of beers including Menabrea which is not found on tap anywhere else in NJ. Bartenders are awesome. Highlights of our visit were the fried calamari and the baked eggplant. Also had the paccheri pasta with an incredible ragu sauce! As for dessert, the zabaglione was among the best I’ve ever had. And the espresso martini was awesome also. Also of note is that the trattoria is attached to Ristorante MV which is a bit more formal and upscale but it looks beautiful. Will definitely be back to the trattoria and will definitely try the ristorante.

We had a lovely time for a Friday lunch. Food and service were excellent. Highly recommend

Best in area Authentic Italian. Food is superb. Vibe is very quaint and inviting inside dining area. Bar has upscale cocktail feel with great drinks. Highly recommended for any occasion. Scallops, capalletti, lamb, gnocchi are must tries

It was packed and I am sure they are working short staffed, so I won't hold it against them as to how long the entire night took to have dinner. On such nights, you are better off trying to find parking on the side streets. The valet was rely backed up. The menu had a big variety of items. We had a variety of apps and meals. All were excellent. The desserts were superb, especially the tramasui. Overall it was a very good meal with solid service..would go back again.

Always been a great visit. Can’t wait to go again. I’ll be there on Dec 13. Hope to be there before handed.

For those of you who haven’t heard, MV is the hottest new spot in Bernardsville these days. And in my opinion, the hype is well deserved. Firstly, be warned: this place is ALWAYS busy. If you want to go dine on the restaurant side, you must make a reservation. Secondly, the food will knock your socks off. I can hardly imagine anyone not being impressed if they were to be taken here. Lastly, yes, it is very pricey. While I can’t see myself coming here every Saturday night (as much as I want to), I do see MV being a regular place for my special occasions. Service is exceptionally good for a fully-packed restaurant. Water is filled regularly and at least the servers I’ve had have all been very accommodating. They have an extensive specials menu that frequently outshines their regular menu, and I will say that I wish they’d have their specials available online. However, food-wise from the regular menu, I can personally recommend the Ravioli Casalinga (there is meat in the red sauce but can be made without— let your server know if you’re veg/vegan!!), Chicken Francese, and the Caprese di Mozzarella Casalinga.

Always excellent I have been here multiple times and always forget to post … so here goes Michaels restaurant is a compliment to bernardsville… he has brought in authentic quality Italian food …. Which never disappoints ! His staff is very knowledgeable… the restaurant has changed hands over 5 times since I lived in the area but since MV has moved in I am sure he will be there a long time Definitely a go to ! If you are looking for a good meal in a beautifully redone classic building go try it

The Carbonara was excellent and filling. The Shrimp and Scallops was delicious. The Italian Cheesecake was a wonderful dessert to end an excellent dining experience.

Is this the best Italian food you’re going to find? No. Is the service out of this world? No. That’s not why you come here. You come here if you want to be in a unique & classy atmosphere, where you can get solid red sauce dishes & great drinks. Worth a visit for a nice night out.

1st time there, what a great experience food was amazing. The presentation was wonderful and everything was cooked to perfection. The staff we're very attentive, never had an empty glass or a dirty dish in front of us for more than thirty seconds! Parking's a little tough and the place is a little bit pricey even for the area. It's in but well worth it!

Very nice place, once inside you're transported to the Tuscan countryside. Make a reservation a week in advance if it's an important occasion, it's very busy. We went Saturday night at 6:30 and it was packed. Everything we had was excellent. One of the highlights for me though was dessert. I had gelato in Rome and Florence and it was amazing, I have tried it all over the Tri-state area and it was nothing like what I had in Italy. This place is the closest I've come to it. The waiter said they make it in house and I believe him, it was the best gelato I've had since returning from Italy. Highly recommended particularly for a special occasion.

From the moment we walked in, we knew we were in for a treat,and the staff was extremely helpful in accommodating our special requests. The ambiance was great, and the food definitely lived up to my expectations.I was very impressed with the quality of the product I received.Overall, dining at this restaurant was a delight from start to finish

This restaurant is amazing. I believe it is the same owners as Queen in Brooklyn, no longer in business. The food , service and atmosphere is perfection!

Now this place is freakin Italian 🤌🤌🤌 The zucchini fries are so delicate and crispy. The lobster tail so fresh. The veal so scrumptious. Amazing selection of wine for you sommeliers.

Service is excellent. Our meals were above and beyond our expectations. The building and ambiance takes you back to Italy. Thank you for a pleasant experience.

Went back for dinner. Mike is the best! What an amazing dinning experience Be sure to have the fried mozz! And the chicken parm. Service is impeccable. I’ll be back

If you are looking for great service, incredible food, creative drinks and a beautiful ambiance Ristorante MV is it! My husband and I moved from the bustling city to nearby area and had been on the hunt for a place that had good food with high energy like so many of the Italian restaurants we were spoiled with in the city. We found it! Not only is the menu super fresh and creative, it includes all of the Italian classics with perfection. My favorite part is the service. From the moment you walk in Michael the host is very warm and accommodating. Our servers have all been lovely but our most recent visit we had Guillermo and he was just wonderful. He provided recommendations and was so warm and inviting. I would recommend for date nights, special occasions, celebrations and everything in between.

Great place finally in Bernardsville! Food was fantastic. Best eggplant I've ever had. Delicious pasta. Cool vibe.

Food has always been excellent! Drinks are great as well but pretty pricey. Love the Trattoria upstairs as well, smaller portions of food than the restaurant but that's typical for a trattoria. Wish they had more specials on drinks and apps in both the restaurant and trat.

The place was packed and still very accommodating. The menu was diverse and the food was delish. Most impressive was the staff. Especially our server.

It was our first time going to the MV restaurant and it was a wonderful experience. We were greeted with a warm welcome and seated at our reservation time. The atmosphere was great with a rustic look. The wait staff was very accommodating and in tune with making our meal memorable. Our appetizers were so good and our entrees were a 10. Our plates went back to the kitchen clean. Lastly, our desserts topped off the meal and our coffee came out hot. We will be coming back often. Brian C. East Hanover, NJ

Great place! If you’re looking for really great Italian food, make a reservation. It’s one restaurant with two places to eat. They have a bar downstairs with a full dining room, and upstairs there’s a bistro. The best calamari ever! I’ve never been disappointed.

On Mill St. in Bernardsville, Ristorante MV was on our radar for awhile. Serving mostly Italian cuisine, it didn't disappoint. Great atmosphere in a historic building for starters. For dinner my wife and I tried the Osso Bucco served with a side of couscous and the shrimp and sausage entree. Both above average. Great place I would recommend trying once. 👍

Beautiful restaurant.. was super packed because everyone came here after the hunt. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was fun . The waiter was very nice , his assistant or food runner.. a woman was snappy and didn’t speak English very well and my friend had to tell her to calm down with her attitude towards me. Other than her, everything was perfect.

The atmosphere is awesome, the cocktails were well crafted and the food was great. Rich, our server was great. I think it’s an awesome restaurant all around, but it wasn’t a wow enough place for our 35 minute commute. If we lived closer it would be a no brainer go-to spot.

I’m writing to share feedback about our recent visit. We felt rushed and pushed out by our waiter, which significantly impacted our experience. Afterward, we learned that there was a second wave of seating, but this was never communicated to us at any point. Had we been informed ahead of time, we would have understood the situation. Instead, the service felt abrupt and unwelcoming. I hope this feedback helps improve communication and service for future We won’t be coming back

Just finished dinner here! Atmosphere is great, love each floor asthetic, and the blue bar is very cool. Food and service was as mid as it gets in opinion. We tried a little bit of everything, and while the food was good, every dish felt like it lacked something. This is fine Italian food, but it is VERY expensive, especially for the quality and flavor of the dishes. You can find much flavorful food for less, overall it was fine

Way over priced and over hyped. I had the special 16oz commercial grade ribeye priced at $96, it was over cooked and over sauced (plus the server did not mention the price). The Carbonara was 75% bacon flavored. Each of our 5 meals came with soggy vegetables and the option to pay an additional $29 for a small plate of paste (garlic & oil) . Service was rushed with multiple servers asking us to take our drink order 3x's and meal order over 5x's. We ordered ap's and desert for a table of 5 and still they rushed us out of our table. The atmosphere is about talking loud so people can hear that you are looking at a $17 Million dollar house on the mountain. I loved the interior historical quality, but they need to work on improving the quality of the food and service. Very disappointing, you can do better.

Good environment / atmosphere but food is mediocre especially if you know what good food at a good restaurant is like. Value is just not there as well. Shrimp that I ordered tasted like chlorine., chicken Parm was super thick and had no flavor, eggplant pasta had big chunks of eggplant and almost uncooked tomatoes in it and also no flavor. Octopus fried with weird amalgam of things on plate like raw avocado, pomegranate, capers. The only good thing was really the orange cake for dessert and the gelato. Very ambitious place, but once again I think the atmosphere is good so I give it 2 stars!

Food was meh… I would have been just as happy going to the local pizzeria for the same thing at a WAY lower cost.

The food was pretty looking but there was little flavor. Because this is in a very ritzy part of the state they think they can charge high prices for par food. The baked clams were good but that was about it. Never going back. You are better off going to Vincenzo’s in Middlesex better prices and much better food. The MV location is beautiful but I did not go there because of its looks.

I used to love this place and recommended it to everyone—the food really is great. But after noticing that every Friday and Saturday night during prime dinner hours has been booked out for months, I can’t help but feel like the owner reserves those times for select guests. It makes it really difficult, if not impossible, for others to get a reservation, which takes away from the experience and makes the restaurant less appealing.

I made this reservation months ago and upon arrival, made sure to check both the website and social media for any updates, and there was none. No where was a pre-fixed menu advertised. I had come in August and experienced amazing food from their regular dining menu. We had a 7:30 reservation and had to wait quite some time before we were even seated and everyone in the restaurant was practically sitting on top of one another. There was absolutely no privacy, and no intimacy between you and your date. All that this place cared about was fitting as many people into their restaurant at once. My server did not even introduce herself, I could not tell you her name. She was NOT personable and seemed “too busy” to answer any of my questions about the menu. My date and I saw her at the beginning of the dinner when she took our order and that was it, she never came back. The appetizer was quite atrocious - a ball of mozzarella drenched in olive oil. I order the salmon which was also drenched in oil and my date had a dish with a chicken Milanese cutlet on it. Both him and i did not drink. The food took forever, we did not get it until 8:45 and our server was no where to be found. When we looked around the restaurant, there wasn’t one smiling face to be found, pretty much everyone seemed dissatisfied including myself. I had to flag down a busser to drop us the check where we also asked that our desserts were given to us in to go bags because we simply could not sit there any longer. That took about another half our for the bill to actually make it to the table and then they brought out our desserts on dishes. When asking them for them go to, a different server not our original one gave us such an attitude about it and my date and I sat there for ANOTHER 25 minutes waiting for our to go desserts. The bill was $320, for what? The place is a complete scam and every single person who dined their for Valentine’s Day was scammed. No where was the price of $150 per person disclosed and those kinds of prices are OUTRAGEOUS considering the mid quality food and the horrible service. They completely robbed everyone of their money. Not only that, when I got home, at about 11pm I was sick to my stomach from what I had eaten, keep in mind that we didn’t drink, that I had thrown up every single thing that I had eaten from Ristorante MV. I have never written a public review before but I felt as though I had to share my awful experience. I will never step foot in this restaurant ever again, the place is a rip off. Please, DO NOT come here for any special occasion or holiday - they will completely over charge you as if they are some luxury dining in NYC and the food is not good. Here is a picture of the two desserts which we were forced to order and didn’t even want. You’re telling me that this is worthy of being included in a $320.00 bill?

I found a hair in my food, and they tried to claim it was a piece of cheese. the waiter showed no remorse, which was truly disappointing. I will never go back—this makes me think their kitchen lacks proper hygiene. Hours have passed, and I still feel nauseous. They served me meat with a huge strand of hair in it.🤮🤮

Beautiful restaurant and atmosphere. If only the food and service was comparable. Plating is beautiful but flavor is below average for the cost - and this was general consensus of our table of 6. We had an appetizer we did not order, was shorted one appetizer and shorted one dessert. On principle the thing that aggravated me the most was some of the abusive pricing. Imagine a $25 appetizer of “corn gnocchi” to be 5 sad frozen tasting tortillini on a plate w a scant of sauce and one 3/4” sawed off slice of corn on the cob. It was so sad it was comical. Both times I was there (gave it two tries), waitstaff seemed downright miserable and bothered. Great place if you like getting dressed up and food and cost isn’t your priority.