Pranjali Sharma
Google
This restaurant is deceiving! From the outside, you think it that might be a simple looking, slightly shady restaurant in a shady-ish area of town. When you enter, it transforms into a chic, cosmopolitan little space that looks very inviting. I would recommend getting a reservation especially if you are a bigger group because they were busy on a Friday night! Thankfully, we could get seated at the bar.
The menu is well-thought out. It isn't extensive, but we liked that they offer some classics and some of their own culinary fusions. We think they are attempting to create their name in the Italian cuisine industry here in Sac, as they seem to have updated menu items, they serve wines from their family vineyards in Italy and are also promoting pasta making classes. I love that!
Ok, onto the wine and food. I ordered their classic white, which was 50% Chardonnay and 50% blend and my husband ordered their classic red, which was a red blend. I don't know which component of my white was buttery, but the wine wasn't as crisp as I was hoping for. The red blend was better.
Food wise, they did a good job overall. We ordered their stuffed cherry peppers as an appetizer, the gnocchi, and the four cheese ravioli. The stuffed cherry peppers were simple, elegant and delicious! The plate was a few cherry peppers stuffed with goat cheese served on a bed arugula with a drizzle of an excellent balsamic vinaigrette with some black pepper. The simplicity of the components made this plate even more delicious. We thoroughly enjoyed it! Highly recommend ordering this appetizer.
Onto the pastas: the gnocchi was excellent - light, melting in the mouth with ample amount of delicious sauce. This is one of the best gnocchi plates my husband has had, and he is particular about his gnocchi! The garlic bread was a tad disappointing because it could have done with a more butter and garlic. It felt a little dry and didn't taste like fresh bread. Dipping it in the gnocchi sauce helped, but I would've liked better bread.
The four cheese ravioli took some bites for me to like it. My main issue with it was that I thought the ravioli was slightly undercooked but my husband felt it was ok. The pastas are all handmade so we commend them on making the ravioli but maybe we needed to boil it for a couple more minutes? The sauce for the ravioli was very good - spicy thanks to the peppers, lots of pine nuts and spinach. The cheese inside the ravioli was decent, but just that - cheese, no additional flavors there. I had the same complaint about the garlic bread not being buttered/garlicky enough. I think this dish is almost there but needs a few tweaks.
For dessert, we got the tiramisu. The look of it was disappointing because it was not made as a big portion but constructed in a jar. The look was aesthetically pleasing for a flair but this meant that the dessert didn't come together like a normal tiramisu does. It was also overtly sweet. The color was quite pale. We would've liked more coffee. We've definitely had better tiramisu desserts before.
I think this is a great restaurant. Their service is fast, the servers are friendly and once inside, you forget how the outside is! They have some cool decor like the wall of $2 bills. Their food is definitely hitting the mark for the most part, but they need a few tweaks here and there. A few weeks ago, we went to Paesanos where we had a great experience. Between the two, Paesanos leads currently because of their garlic bread and the tiramisu but I think Adamo's has a higher quality of pasta.
We will be back to try more of your menu!