Rachel B.
Yelp
My husband and I have eaten here twice, once for lunch and once for dinner. Lunch was a while ago and we declared then that we'd come back for dinner for a special occasion. Well, that occasion was last night and we chose it for our anniversary dinner. Throughout the dinner, both of us just kept repeating, "I'm so glad we came here."
We sat in the main restaurant (there is now a pizza place area behind the main dining area). We were slightly disappointed by the lack of availability of wines by the glass, but there are a ton of great wines to choose from by the bottle. I simply chose the "house red" and my husband had a pinot noir. They were served in *real* wine glasses. Wine people, you know what I mean. Both were great and I was particularly pleased that the "house" wine was as nice in quality as it was (usually these are just throw away crap wines).
We were served an amuse bouche course of tuna tartare. It was fantastic. My husband started with the oxtail consomme and I had the burrata insalata caprese. Both of us were very pleased with both items. For my main, I has asparagus risotto with chili prawns and my husband had the eye fillet. My risotto was awesome on it's own, but it was garnished with a prosciutto chip that just blew me away. My husband's steak was perfectly cooked and his parsnip puree was so smooth we just sat there wondering how it could be done. My husband (the steak guy) stated twice that this was the best steak he's had since we moved to NZ eight months ago (and we've been to a number of places with steak, including steak houses).
The evening was wonderful and we would have stayed for dessert, but our newborn didn't get the message that we were having a special dinner out and got too fussy to stay. Options for dessert included tiramisu, a coffee creme brulee and a cannolo. I'm sure they were probably all really great and we'll have to give them a try the next time around.
The staff were friendly and attentive. Our server was Italian and from the same town as the owner of the restaurant (in northern Italy). We enjoyed talking with him about some of our travels there and his travels in the United States.
This place is amazing and is easily an excellent choice for a special night out, for groups or couples. You could also turn an otherwise ordinary evening into a special one by having your dinner here.
Just to be warned, you should check out the menu before you decide - it's definitely higher-end food and what I usually refer to as "frou frou" in some of the dishes. For example, if you come looking for lasagna, there wasn't any. The pasta entrees looked familiar, but instead of the usual meat sauce one had a venison sauce. That sort of thing. That said, I would say come here anyway and give it a try and I don't think you will be disappointed.
