Anand D.
Yelp
I came to Taverna for dinner over this past weekend, on Friday, with my fiancé and two of our other friends. We had never been here before, but have always heard about it, so we decided to check it out.
We all got a drink each to start. I got the Southern Heat, the girls got the Lavender Refresher, and the other girl's fiancé got an Espresso Martini. My drink was really good. It was almost like a spicy margarita but had a little bit of a sweet element, which came from the passionfruit. The girls did not enjoy their lavender refresher. They said it was way too sweet. I even tried some, and I also agreed that it was way too sweet. The espresso martini was okay, but nothing special. They didn't even put any beans on the top, like how you normally see. Overall, the drinks were a miss for most of us.
For food, we each got our own dish, and we could all grab a bite if we wanted. Before our dinner came, we were brought some bread and oil. It was soooooo good. The bread was nice and toasted, and had such a good crunch that paired excellent with the spice filled oil....we asked for another round of bread, because we loved it that much.
For our mains, I got the Cacio e Pepe, and my fiancé got the California Pizza. The other couple got the Ravioli Maremmani and the Truffle Pizza. The portion sizes of everything were pretty big, so that was nice. My Cacio e Pepe was not good though. It was very chalky, and just way too over-powering, and not enjoyable at all. It just had too much going on, when I was expecting something much more light, but still flavorful. This was heavy and way too chalky. The California pizza was pretty good. It tasted fresh, and the avocado was an interesting add-on. I personally don't like avocado, but my fiancé does, and she enjoyed her pizza. I tried the truffle pizza, and didn't like it. Normally I'm a huge fan of mushrooms, but this pizza was all mushroom and nothing else. I almost forgot it was supposed to be a pizza. Just way too much on there. The Ravioli dish, was in my opinion, the best dish. It was tasty and hit on some good flavor notes. It had buffalo ricotta cheese and spinach inside, and was SO GOOD. We all actually agreed that this dish was the best dish out of the four.
Overall, the experience and food at this place wasn't too special. The inside was nice, and you can sit on the patio if you would like, we sat inside though. The food just wasn't that great, and the drinks were kind of whatever too. They also imposed a mixed beverage tax, and we had no idea what that was. We had asked to speak to a manager too, and even they didn't really understand what that was either, so that left a really bad taste in our mouth. I probably wouldn't come back here again in the future. The menu is pretty big, but even then, I don't really care to try anything else, after most of our dishes were a dud.