Mazara Trattoria

Mazara has the absolute best Italian food you will find in OC. This is the real deal. One time we sat next to a group of Italians (with heavy accents) and they told us this is the only place they go to in OC for real Italian food. They remarked that the dish I was having was traditional, like in Italy. My husband and I are repeat customers for many years now. We have tried many (not all) dishes (including pizza), and they have all been delicious. There are daily specials as well. I’ve rarely had room for dessert, but when I did the tiramisu was heavenly. I’m certain all the desserts are exquisite. Wine selection is tremendous — so good in fact that we’ve placed orders for cases of wine. Beer is available also. It’s obvious that Joe and Laura (the owners) take great pride in Mazara. The atmosphere is so nice — friendly and warm and clean. Great place for a date, or any size group. We have brought family, friends and business associates here and all have remarked how wonderful Mazara is. No question, it is a gem in Orange County.

Absolutely, the best Italian restaurant. This place is small but extremely clean with great customer service. Greeted by one of the owners she is always looking out for customers and their needs. The food is soooooo good.
Rarely do you find delicious food and exceptional customer service in one location.
Treat yourself and someone special to this place and you will be coming back for a great experience everytime you think of Italian food. Soooooo GOOD!

Great food, good atmosphere, and friendly service.

By far the best salmon I have ever had. Everything here is absolutely amazing and would highly recommend this place to everyone.

Seriously if you like, love or are obsessed with Cheesecake — must have Joe’s Cheesecake made on the premises by Chef Joe — in one word ‘Phenomenal’ and the best cheesecake I have ever had. Love!

Came here for the first time on a Friday night had no problem getting a table and the staff was very welcoming. The server knew how to guide us through the menu throughly and helped us make decisions. One of the best Italian restaurants I can say I’ve ever been too. Will definately be back here!

We wanted to try something different. We had a nice night dining here the owners wife was so sweet. The service was great. The food was good but not for the price. It was way too expensive. If we’re spending $ 160.00 plus for the two of us It needs to be really good. We’re going back to our favorite Italian restaurant which probably comparable in price.

Delicious! Our first time to dine here… in my mom’s neighborhood. Wonderful service. The dishes all looked so good! Def make a reservation as very small place. Will be back!

Maybe 5 stars is high, but the service was excellent, and the risotto, seafood were so perfectly cooked I wanted to express it with a 5.
There is not much inventiveness to great food, and Mazara has understood this and made it part of its positive attributes. You get great dishes prepared with no fluff, but with careful preparation.
Its not a large dining space, but the right size for the owner/​staff to accommodate personal plate attention, and even buying quantity/​quality.
So I would surely recommend reservations. The place was full with each table occupied. We were seated right away at the reserved table in the middle.
The décor communicates authenticity, and no fluff, or extra BS of décor, or anything unnecessary.
This is something I like… nice, and simply honest.
The main dishes we all loved. Rissotto with seafood was great. I will come back for that prep of a dish. Appetizers were also nice. The rolled eggplant was a hit!
Some Cons that can be overlooked in the general, but I think can be tweaked…
Bread as a starting/​opening item was a little less fresh than what I expected, but not stale or anything bad. Just not desirably good fresh bread where you would say, «I like the fresh bread». It just wasn’t. The olive oil was fine. Not memorable in any particular flavors, but it was better than many places.
Calamari was better than many places that have the dark thick crust of disgusting batter. Much better, and not comparable to those process plant chains that serve a basket of fried garbage. This was a nice thin, light batter with a nice sauce, lemon wedges we used, and we all enjoyed and finished. Nice tenticle parts with small rings. The small rings a bit dry. So, something can be done, maybe have larger rings, or cook less? I don’t know, but it can be a chunk better to be a superb great calamari.
Wines were really nice, They have it listed very helpfully from lighter to full, and we enjoyed the full reds.
The deserts:
Lemon cake was enjoyed by all!
Tiramisu while we all did enjoy it, with a bit missing flavors… much closer to authentic greatness than just about any other place, so it was good in that sense.
I missed some flavors, like more fresh coffee flavor, and perhaps Marsala wine, or was something else? It was almost good… but missing something. Thank goodness there was no noticeable liquor flavor in it, or I would have been shaking my head NOOO!
Afogato was great. Having it with hazelnut icecream should be the way it comes, but we had to ask for it, as it was standard with vanilla. Also, you can surely skip the whip cream on top! Not sure how it got there. Its not a kids desert (it has coffee), so get rid of the whip cream! I had to scrape that stuff off as it was messing with the great flavors.
So these details I would love to see, if the chef/​owner would be so humble and willing to give a touch more detail… but having said that, thank you for a wonderful dinner for our larger group.
Its evident this place prides itself in great food, so its hard to expect feedback here to be tried and tested, but I promise it will pay back more in every way.
Service was great, and it was very enjoyable to dine here.
If in the area, or even if its a bit out of your way, I highly recommend Mazara!

Great mom-​and-​pop restaurant! Osso Buco, spaghetti bolognese, and fettuccine w/​mushrooms were excellent! We’ll be back…

Tucked inside a strip mall, Mazara Trattoria was a lovely find! A coworker and I dropped in around 8pm on a Thursday and the restaurant only had 3 tables of folks. It’s a small place, but it felt cozy. The wine selection was all right, but the food was so darn good! They start you with some bread with tomato spread, which was unique and tasty. I ordered the fettucini with mushrooms, which the waitress then suggested I add arugula and garlic — AMAZING. It was a tad more cream than I wanted, but the dish was so delicious. The mushrooms had so much flavor, and they didn’t skimp on the quantity of mushrooms. My coworker ordered one of the daily specials — a pork chop, which was a huge portion. We both licked our plates clean and unfortunately had no room for dessert. The staff were all friendly and treated us like family. I know we’ll be back another day!

The wife and I tried Mazara Trattoria for the first time on Friday ⁴⁄₁. Really loved the food and personal attention. When the staff heard it was our first time, the owner came out and introduced herself to us. Very nice touch. The atmosphere is very nice and homey. I had the special Risotto Tutu Mare (seafood risotto), and the wife, who’s vegetarian, had the pasta with veggies. The Risotto was a little pricey at $ 27, but to be fair, it had a lot of seafood in it. Very tasty! The sauce on the risotto was amazing! The wife liked her dish, too. Really loved the sundried tomato sauce and focaccia bread they bring out before the meal. Never had anything like it before.
We can’t wait to come back and try other things on the menu. The great thing about this place besides the food, is the personal attention and service. They really make you feel right at home very quickly.

I saw the good reviews and decided to give it a try. The restaurant is small but nicely done. My companion and I were pleasantly surprised. The owners were friendly but not intrusive. It was a nice friendly atmosphere, the service was excellent. The food was freshly made and flavorful.
I had the Rigatoni All Vodka with sausage, the pasta was cooked perfectly, al dente, the sauce was creamy and delicious, sausage, mild and flavorful. It was a good size order.
My companion ordered the Linguini Fantasia, she really liked it and even though she’s not a big eater she finished it because she enjoyed it so much, it too was a good portion.
We also ordered the Margherita Pizza, we certainly didn’t need it, just thought we’d try it out, have a piece and take the rest home. Thin crust, which I like, good flavor, again, yummy!
We were both full and debating if we wanted desert, again, we really didn’t need it. The owner stepped in and brought us a slice of Tiramisu, it was light, creamy, delicious and on the house! We were both glad we tried it, yum.
We will definitely be back, enjoyed it!

I love this place, confortable, I feel like home, excellent service and food.
The best fritura Mista ever, my mom had the lamb chops, OMG! one of the best she ever had, presentation and taste was great!
My cousin had the Ciopino, you can tell at the time they served the food a spectacular presentation and taste even better.
I highly recomend this place, everything is cook at the moment, so fresh!

If you live in Huntington Beach, you must head here for excellent Italian food with even better service.
I’ve been here multiple times with my family and each time we are impressed with the experience. They start you off with complimentary foccacia bread and garlic knots — served with olive oil and a tomato paste. They are always warm and soft.
I’ve tried multiple pasta dishes here and I have to say the Penne Vodka is by far the best. It has pieces of prosciutto in it which makes it unique. The vodka sauce is creamy and very flavorful. I usually have to add pepper flakes and/​or cheese to my pastas, but not at this place. They also have a nice wine list to complement your pasta :)
They are a family owned business with lots of heart behind their operation — and you can definitely tell by the food! The parking is the only complaint I have about this, but that’s not the restaurant’s fault.
Enjoy, pasta lovers!

I have been coming here for the last few years with friends before my hubby and I moved to HB «he had never been» I brought him here for the first time and he absolutely loved it! In fact he stated that the food was better then his little Sicilian Grandmothers cooking «rest her soul» The ambiance is just as good as the food and the owners treat you like old friends. The best authentic Sicilian food in OC hands down!!! I’ll be taking all my friends and family here!

I feel like I am coming home to family here whenever I come during lunch.
Go to dishes are: Spinach Salad, Classico Panini sandwich, and Calzone.
Lunch specials are very reasonable and the family vibe makes you feel at home.
This place is easily missed as it resides in a strip mall off of busy Beach Blvd.
Take the time and come here, the Classico Panini is my favorite. The bread lightly toasted and you have fresh mozzarella cheese and thinly sliced proscutto inside. The plate is garnished with a small salad and drizzles of very good quality balsamic vinegar.
With the new year I recently tried the Spinach Salad with grilled chicken. While the chicken was nothing to write about, the spinach was neatly organized around a center of artichoke hearts and thinly sliced red onions. Perfectly balanced with their house made dressing.
A coworker of mine routinely goes for the Calzone, and for the price during lunch you get a lot of the money. I have to try this when I return, and bet you I am returning.
One last mention is the fresh complimentary focaccia bread with their tomato dip that is served to you while you await your home made Italian meal.

Be careful, a big fat roach was lurking on the wall next to our table. Yuck!

The bread here is delicious!!! Well not so much the bread as much as the sauce that comes with it. The bread is nice and warm and tasty, but the sauce is like a tomatoey paste, that just has all the right flavors and tastes that make it the highlight of the meal here!
Unfortunately, beyond that everything was just okay for me. We had the Fettucine Ai Fungi and one of the specials of the night, which was a bunch of seafood on a risotto. Both dishes were sadly rather bland for me.
The Fettuccine Ai Fungi was interesting in the sense that the cream and mushrooms were actually quite pleasant tasting, but it was just missing that last extra bit that would have made it even more special. I felt the cream and mushroom needed some other ingredient to bring out more flavor in the dish, but it just wasn’t there. The Risotto was interesting, but it also felt bland. Like the rice was just kind of present, it didn’t really compliment the seafood in any particularly special way.

My husband took me here for our anniversary. Everyone was really nice and the chef/​owner came out and greeted us towards the end of our meal. He gave us a comp dessert to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Very nice of him!
We shared the calamari appetizer. It was made well — light battered and soft calamari with a tangy marinara dip. I ordered the lasagna and my husband got the filet pasta. We both enjoyed our dish! I made some as leftovers for the next day and it was really good. The corkage fee is $ 12 in case you want to enjoy your own bottle.