On Walkabout Restaurant Review: Mangia! Mangia!

Basic Information

• Name: Mangia! Mangia!
• Where: Woodland Park, Colorado
• Type of Restaurant: Italian
• More Information: Mangia! Mangia! website

Narrative

Last year I read in the local Gazette newspaper about how celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay was bringing his Kitchen Nightmares restaurant makeover show to little old Woodland Park just up the road from Colorado Springs.  The restaurant he selected to give a make over was an Italian restaurant called Mangia! Mangia! which is Italian for Eat! Eat!  I figured this may be the only time that my family and I would have a chance to eat at a restaurant that was given the Gordon Ramsay treatment, so we made the drive up to Woodland Park to have lunch at the restaurant.  Mangia! Mangia! was very easy to find since it is located inside an old Arby’s building just off of Highway 24 when you first drive into Woodland Park from Colorado Springs:

Looking at the building it just did not appear to be an Italian restaurant.  It still looked like a fast food joint:

We were a little concerned that due to the restaurant being given the Gordon Ramsay treatment that it would be busy for lunch, but we were surprised to find that it really wasn’t all that busy.  The inside of Mangia! Mangia! was fixed up quite nicely, but due to the layout it still resembled a fast food restaurant, especially because of the ceiling and tile floor that at some point the owner should consider replacing just to take away from the fast food appearance:

We found the service at the restaurant to be very good.  It wasn’t busy so I am not sure what the service would be like then, but on our visit we had no complaints.  The menu we found to be easy to navigate, which if you watch Kitchen Nightmares simple menus are a staple of Gordon Ramsay restaurants.  So we each ordered a pasta dish plus an appetizer of fried artichokes that the waitress recommended to us:

I never had fried artichokes before, but it ended up being pretty good and the sauce was excellent.  Next our salads came and we found the ingredients to be fresh and the dressing to be quite good as well:

So far, so good and next came our pasta dishes.  All the dishes we thought were presented quite nicely and looked appetizing.  My wife ordered the spaghetti and meatballs and told me that she thought it tasted pretty good, but not great:

I had the penne pasta and had the same opinion that my wife had about her spaghetti, that it was good, but not great.  I was not impressed by the bread which seemed a bit cheap considering the high quality ingredients put into the rest of the meal:

My daughter had the kid’s spaghetti and loved it.  She finished it within a few minutes:

Finally we decided to order a tiramisu for desert and much like with our other dishes we found it to be good, but not great:

Conclusion

To be fair to Mangia! Mangia! my wife and I have eaten plenty of authentic Italian cooking before at various restaurants in Melbourne’s Italian district along Lygon Street during our time living in Australia.  So we tend to compare Italian restaurants to the restaurants we have eaten at along Lygon Street which were just amazing.  The food at Mangia! Mangia! was quite good, the service was great, the prices considering the quality of the food I thought was very reasonable, and the owners have clearly done a lot of work to try and change the fast food atmosphere of the building.  So overall we did like Mangia! Mangia! and we are not alone because the food reviewer at the Gazette liked the restaurant as well.  The next time we are in Woodland Park and feel like eating Italian we would definitely go back to Mangia! Mangia!

Note: For those that want to watch the Mangia! Mangia! Kitchen Nightmares episode it will air on FOX on April 25, 2014.