Profile

This chain may not offer authentic Italian food, but perhaps it provides an intriguing spin on the idea of Italian food. The three-story Times Square outpost’s décor, like that of Olive Gardens the world over, can best be described as neo-Tuscan farmhouse—styled like a model home in a Mediterranean–inspired subdivision of Midwest McMansions. But the food, largely tarted up Italian standards, seems like the result of ceaseless (and careless) focus-grouping to determine which tomato sauce least offends. Sure, the prices are low and the portions huge, the breadsticks and the salad unlimited. But when those “breadsticks” resemble nothing so much as toasted hot-dog buns and when servers bring out one course literally on top of the next, regardless of how much is still on your table or how far you’ve made it through that bottomless bowl of greens or that appetizer sampler consisting entirely of fried things, you’ll be hard-pressed to shout “Molto bene!” — Andrew Sessa

Steak Gorgonzola-Alfredo, $20.95