My family of 4 went to Maggiano's for the first time, and our $230 dinner at the chain felt like an incredible value

• My family of 4 recently visited Italian-American chain Maggiano's Little Italy for the first time.

• Our $230 meal included bread service, appetizers, drinks, four pasta dishes, and dessert.

• Overall, our meal felt like a great value. The atmosphere felt high-end, and our food was delicious.

The chain Maggiano's Little Italy has been around since the early 1990s and has over 50 locations around the US, but I'd never visited it until recently.

The Italian-American eatery got on my radar late last year when it tapped Michelin-starred chef Anthony Amoroso as its first-ever vice president of innovation and growth.

Plus, it's owned by the same company as Chili's, which is currently making a huge comeback (especially among Gen Z consumers). I was curious to see if I felt its "sister" chain could be next.

So, my husband, two teens, and I headed to dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy in Orlando. Here's what our meal was like.

Right off the bat, Maggiano's felt high-end and intimate.

On the outside, the restaurant's black awning with simple lettering felt elegant and welcoming.

Inside, Maggiano's ambiance reminded me of a high-end, pricey steakhouse or an authentic Italian restaurant. The candle-lit, chandelier-dotted interior felt quite intimate and cozy.

I didn't feel like I was in a chain restaurant at all. In fact, it reminded me of when I used to live in Baltimore and visit its Little Italy neighborhood for dinner.

The restaurant has a family-style menu, but we chose to order individual dishes.

The restaurant offers a family-style menu with shareable courses, including starters, an entrée, a pasta dish, and a dessert.

It seemed like a decent deal for about $50 a person. However, everyone in my party had specific cravings and wanted pasta, so we ordered from the regular menu instead.

We started the meal with a round of drinks.

To start off the meal, my husband ordered a Negroni ($9) while my teenagers and I stuck with sodas and iced tea ($5 each).

Later in the meal, my husband ordered an $18 glass of wine to go with his pasta, followed by a $5 cup of coffee with dessert.

He spent way more on drinks than others in our group — over $30 — but the three of us were content with our free refills.

A complimentary bread course came out soon after we were seated.

Soon after we were seated, we were brought a basket of fresh, warm ciabatta bread and oil with herbs for dipping.

The bread was delicious, and we were served so many pieces that we even had some left to take home.

For our appetizer, we shared fried mozzarella.

We started our meal by sharing the fried mozzarella for $16.

The crisp planks of battered and fried cheese were topped with melted mozzarella and served with a tomato dipping sauce.

Everyone at my table enjoyed this tasty appetizer, which felt like an elevated take on mozzarella sticks.

My daughter also got a bowl of creamy tomato soup as an appetizer.

Topped with tasty croutons, Maggiano's tomato soup ($10.50) was a great starter for my soup-loving daughter. She really enjoyed it and even let me try a few bites.

The creamy soup tasted perfectly tangy and seasoned with just enough salt to make each bite perfect.

I tried one of Maggiano's signature pasta dishes.

Before visiting any chain, I love checking out the dishes that have copycat recipes on social media. I found a lot of people making copycat versions of Maggiano's Rigatoni D pasta on TikTok, so I ordered it.

The dish includes rigatoni mixed with roasted chicken, mushrooms, caramelized onions, and marsala cream sauce.

It was really good, and I can see why TikTokers recreate the $28.50 dish. The generous portion size meant I took some of the pasta home. Fortunately, it was as delightful leftover as it was served fresh.

My daughter also chose a rigatoni dish for her meal.

One of Maggiano's newer menu items is rigatoni alla vodka ($26.50), a combination of rigatoni, Calabrian chiles, caramelized onions, and vodka sauce.

My daughter added grilled chicken to the dish for an additional $8.50.

We're big fans of pasta with vodka sauce and make it at home often — even so, Maggiano's version of the dish held up.

This creamy pasta was really delicious, especially when eaten leftover the next day.

My son ordered classic spaghetti and meatballs.

My son is a picky eater, so he kept his order simple with spaghetti and meatballs.

His $25.50 spaghetti dish was really good. It was full of classic Italian flavors, with tangy tomato sauce and hearty meatballs.

He had no complaints and also came home with leftovers.

Lastly, my husband chose a carbonara with lobster.

Another fan-favorite dish at Maggiano's is lobster carbonara ($39), a blend of lobster, smoked bacon, sugar snap peas, white-wine truffle cream sauce, Parmesan, and spaghetti.

TikTok is also full of copycat recipes for this pasta dish, so we expected it to be pretty impressive. After all, what's not to love about creamy sauce, pasta, bacon, and lobster?

My husband thoroughly enjoyed this generously portioned dish.

Although I couldn't try it due to a shellfish allergy, he said it was everything he'd want from a carbonara, with just the right hints of creamy sauce and carb-y spaghetti to soak it all up.

Maggiano's also had my favorite dessert — and it tasted wonderful.

Crème brûlée is my favorite dessert, so I'm sure to order it whenever it's on a menu. We were incredibly full from our evening of bread, fried cheese, and pasta, so we decided to share one $12.50 order of it.

I'm glad we shared because this dessert felt huge, just like the pasta dishes we had earlier. It was easily double the size of any crème brûlée I've had in a restaurant.

It was also delicious. As full as I was, I couldn't help but go back for bite after bite of this creamy, sugary, warm treat.

Maggiano's impressed us more than other high-end dining chains have.

Our $230 dinner (including tax and before tip) included lots of drinks, a complimentary bread service, an appetizer, four giant pasta dishes, and a dessert.

Overall, it felt like a great value, and the atmosphere at Maggiano's rivaled any high-end chain we've visited.

We spent less on our meal here than we would at most steakhouse chains, but our dining experience felt just as high-end and high-quality.

Our table felt intimate and we were able to chat with our teenagers and have a great dinner together, something that's just as valuable to my husband and I as the food these days.

To save money next time, we might share dishes since the portion sizes are huge. I'd also consider coming back just to sit at the bar and have crème brûlée for dessert.

Based on my experience, I'd definitely return to Maggiano's and add it to the list of chain restaurants I'd visit with family again and again.

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