Best Family Style Restaurants in Monrovia

Our small group appreciated Celestino's excellent service, extensive menu and wine list and very good Italian food. We also enjoyed our comfortable table with an entertaining view into the busy kitchen. Our arugula & artichoke salad ($22.50, including a $4 "split" charge) was modestly sized, very fresh and lightly dressed. A side order of fresh vegetables ($7) was generous. The traditional lasagne bolognese ($24) was delicious and generously portioned. Our short ribs serving ($39) was huge and perfectly prepared. Our cioppino ($48) was an extremely generous serving of very fresh seafood and fish in a mild, light red broth, a little less flavorful than we would have preferred. Wines by-the-glass are all $16, regardless of which unspecified house brand wine is selected, but the restaurant has a long list of wines-by-the-bottle as well as standard bar beverages. Three scoops of gelato ($8), three beautiful cannoli ($10.50) and a slice of arancia tart ($10.50) made for too-much delicious dessert, but we enjoyed it all anyway! The restaurant provides free parking in a rear-facing lot, accessed from another street, and also has some covered outdoor seating, including for very large business meetings or parties. Background music was not intrusive, and the sound level was comfortable for conversation. Our servers were attentive, but not intrusive and did not rush our meal. They showed off their extraordinary ability to orally elaborate the already-lengthy printed menu with an arm-long list of "specials." Diners at our table and adjacent ones marveled at the servers' ability to recall all those "specials" and carefully recite their ingredients. Despite that talent, our server was unable to recall, when asked, the price of the cioppino. He guessed it was "around $40" and promised to return with the price, but never did. (The cioppino was priced at $48 on the bill.) This is clearly a place for expense-account bankers and attorneys for whom price is no object.

Went for the wine dinner pairing and it was delicious. The service was excellent as well. Will definitely go back.

Wonderful brunch!! Service was great and food was excellent.

My partner and I ate there for an early, low key New Year's Eve dinner. We order a lot of food but that enabled us to try more variety, and then we had enough for another dinner at home the next night. We started with Crab Soup with Fish Maw. Delicious, and generous amount of crab. It was hard to stop with one bowl but we had to leave room for the other dishes. The Sea Scallops with Asparagus was also excellent. We ate all the scallops and took home some of the asparagus. Then came half a Roasted Duck which was a lot of skin and fat. It was better as leftovers when we could cook a lot of the fat down. We also ordered a side of Pea Leaves in Special Sauce. They tasted like peas but much more delicate, which we enjoyed. If we weren't passing through we would already have plans to return.

Quesadilla brisket is sooo good! Great restaurant!