Patrick H.
Yelp
Osteria Bianci is a true diamond. With 100% transparency, I am an Executive Chef by trade and had the pleasure of sharing a dinner with my Executive Sous Chef and our better halves. We wanted to try something new instead of the same old places. This led us to Osteria Bianci. The owners Kelly and Josh are classically trained Chefs and their menu, culture and vision represents what every "Foodie" could expect when visiting a restaurant of this calibre. It's all just simply...welcoming!
The restaurant itself is VERY inviting when you walk in. The atmosphere was alive and buzzing with the restaurant being full, people at the bar having drinks, conversation flowing while servers whisked around and the kitchen pumped out dishes it made for a very vibrant environment. There is outdoor seating and while it was cool last night, they have the heaters out there to snuggle up on a sofa with a cocktail or enjoy your meal al fresco.
We started with a few cocktails at the bar while waiting for our reservation. The bartenders with super friendly and executed brilliantly with our asks. The drink/wine menu were not daunting with hundreds of selections, it was dialed in and and the selections met every need.
The server came and got us when our table was ready and we settled in for what we hoped would be a fantastic meal. Being chefs, we kind of don't do the order one dish per person thing, we like to share in a family meal type thing. So we order a few to a lot of each course.
Keep in mind that Chef Josh has a very local and farm to table approach to his Italian cooking. Literally everything is made from scratch, which was music to our ears as our server went through the menu with us.
We started with the Foccacia which baked fresh daily was to die for!! We also had the Antipasto tray and the grilled sunchokes and the Charred shishito peppers were a perfect compliment to the prosciutto, salami and mortadella. Lastly we had my personal favorite the Chicken Nduja Meatballs which had just the right amount of spiciness to them to leave Wishing you had ordered a second serving of them. Anyway, it was a great beginning.
I should mention that the seating is spread perfectly apart to where conversations become white noise while not being intrusive to your own tables conversation.
We moved on to our pasta course as we skipped pizza to save it for next time. We literally had all five pasta options. I will say that the favorite of the table was the Caccuicco which if you like seafood was the perfect dish. We also really liked the Triangolini, but I am a Butternut Squash maniac...loooove it! All pasta dishes were great and would recommend all of them but those two really stood out. The pasta is made fresh daily in house and you can tell...sooooo good!
We added two entrees to our pasta party as well. We had the Branzino which is one of my absolute favorite mediterranean seafood. Flaky and crispy skin with the cauliflower puree was perfect. We also had the Duck which came with a large portion of duck which was impressive and welcomed as we all devoured that as well. It's was enough to share so those two entrees with five pasta dishes was perfect.
As we all sat there marveling at our own impressive gluttony I took the liberty of ordering one of each dessert. All were super delicious with the super rock star being the Olive Oil Cake...now I will tell you that I have made this cake many times on menus I've written in the past but I believe somewhere back in that Kitchen, Chef Josh has his grandmother making this dish with an old world recipe that would be hard to beat, let alone replicate. The desserts, and especially the Olive Oil Cake were the perfect finish to a very impressive meal.
My final recommendation would be, step away from the chain restaurants, take the drive and enjoy scratch made cooking by this Chef team. You will not be disappointed...We will be back as the menu changes seasonally so I can't wait to see what comes next, just make sure that Olive Oil Cake is there...no matter what, I'm not kidding...say it with me Kelly and Josh, "We Love Olive Oil Cake, and we will never take it off the menu!!!