Kristin A.
Yelp
I tried Panello for the first time on a Sunday night. I had a reservation for 5 people at 5:30 pm which was good since there was a large party of 18 people coming at 6:00 pm which took up a lot of the seating. Panello is off the beaten path in the Monroe Center so it's good they have a free parking lot for patrons. I was very underwhelmed by the experience though and won't be making the trip back there anytime soon. There are definitely more affordably priced BYO pizza spots in Hoboken (Napolis, Johnny Pepperoni, the Brick) that have bigger menus and better tasting food.
When we got to the restaurant, the server immediately told us several main items that weren't available (crab cakes, lasagna, the special hangar steak, and a few more). I was surprised to hear that the pizzas only came in a personal size - 12 inch pizza - since the bulk of their pizzas were priced between $18 - $20 and that's very steep for a personal pie. In addition, their pasta dishes ranged $18 - $22 and again, it was not a large portion for the cost. They told us they had eggplant parmigiana as a special - when we asked if it came with a noodle, they said no - also surprising.
We tried the stuffed mussels and spiedini to start. The stuffed mussels were underwhelming. The spiedini was good. For dinner, three of us got personal pies and two got pasta dishes. I ordered the special Burrata pizza pie ($19). It looked and tasted identical to the Margarita pie someone else at the table ordered. For $4 more, it wasn't worth it. Tasted like average pizza. Also, it was very hard to have a conversation at our table - since there was a very large party, it was very loud in the restaurant and the acoustics there are not good.
Overall, not worth the cost or the trip.