Alix A.
Yelp
For Christmas, my boyfriend and I decided we'd treat each other to some fine dining dinners, instead of exchanging gifts (highly recommend btw) and last night was my turn to treat and what a treat it was!
We had reservations at 7:15 on a Friday night. We were about 10 mins early since we weren't entirely sure what the parking situation was (As an FYI, if you are just going to the restaurant, they do half priced valet ($9), though there is some challenging street parking around and a parking garage about a block down the street) so we ended up waiting for our table to be ready, but there are several places to wait in the hotel lobby area directly outside the restaurant so it wasn't a problem. It also looked like if you had a more substantial wait, they had water options on offer. Once we got into the restaurant it was maybe 3/4 full but it filled all the way up by 7:30, so definitely more of a sexy date night place.
Once we were seated, it did take a few minutes for our waitress to come by and fill our waters. It wasn't a huge issue but this is definitely more of a leisurely service place so I would not recommend if you are looking for a quick experience. Once she did come by, we put in some of our order, I asked for a cherry coke (bf and I were both a bit under the weather so no booze for us) and we requested the table side mozzarella and the arancino. She told us that the mozzarella madam is at the mercy of the curds so she wasn't entirely sure when she'd be able to get to us during our meal but she'd check so she could give us better timing. My coke, again, took a while to come out but they'd added a homemade maraschino cherry, along with the grenadine, so I liked that. But after this I have no complaints about the service. When the coke came, we put in our pasta orders. About 10 mins later right before the food started coming out, I ordered the pork shoulder. She did say it's a very large portion so we'll have leftovers which I told her was fine. Another note: she said for 2 people, they recommend ordering 4-5 dishes, but that we ordered 2 of their large dishes so we really ended up with closer to the equivalent of 7 dishes, with leftovers.
Now on to the food! The Mozzarella Madam, an extremely friendly and charismatic woman, ended up coming out first. She puts on quite a show so I definitely recommend if you want to add something special. She has her own side business so you can hire her for your own parties! She did a great job talking about how she makes the mozzarella. It was absolutely delicious and the salad that was with it was so interesting and flavorful. Right as she was starting, our arancino came out so we were able to eat that as she was doing her demo. That was also delicious. Very complex flavors and wonderful texture - plus oxtail is truly one of my favorite proteins.
At this point, we got a little break to enjoy our mozzarella. Soon we got our 2 pastas. I got the culurgiones, which was basically an Italian pierogi (pasta filled with mashed potatoes) which was divine. My boyfriend ordered the strozaparreti. He loved it. I found it a bit salty, but since I was recovering from a cold, I may have missed some of the more subtle flavors. He joked that it may have been a "hare" salty (hurr hurr because there was rabbit in it), but we did end up leaving a little of that behind for leftovers. At this point the pork came out and holy cow, our server wasn't joking! It was MASSIVE. We definitely could have done that with like 2 small plates and called it a night but we'd never been to the restaurant and wanted to try a bunch of stuff. I think the pork was my favorite. They brought out a side of the braising liquid that had been cooked down to a gravy and definitely that was worth having. The dish was just so complex and so rich and ugh! So excited for leftovers today!
With that, we called it a night. We would have loved to order dessert but were stuffed so our server took the leftover pasta and pork shoulder and made up 2 to-go bags (which was SUPER nice) for us, since we don't life together, with both the pasta and the pork portioned out did each of us. Our final bill, including tip, was $208 which, considering the amount and quality of the food, was quite reasonable. And the fact that neither of us drank saved us some $$$.
TL;DR: Despite a little bit of a slow start, amazing service, flavors and portions make this a must visit for a special occasion!