Author: Chloe_Davis

Ah, Fontanella! I’m not quite sure to make of the name, but a quick Google search sheds light on this mystery. According to the Information Superhighway, “Fontanella” may refer to a “type of drinking fountain,” a town in Italy, or “a cemetery in the City...of Naples.” I suspect the folks at the Clarion Hotel were going for the “drinking fountain” definition, but since M and I were here for the annual Horror Convention, I’m going to apply the “cemetery” definition. After all, given the reason for my patronizing this establishment, the name seems quite apt – a convention of horror. Plus, the lounge area looked pretty dead (har har). Of course, I mean “dead” in the sense of tired or old. The lounge area, where we were sitting in between speaking panels, looked to be straight out of the late 1970s or early 1980s – and not in a charming way. In any event, the place was pretty hectic – packed – because of the convention. As such, it took a while to receive our order of sweet chili wings. I won’t ding them for the time it took because they were indeed VERY busy, so we anticipated a bit of a wait. When the wings eventually arrived, though, they were kind of disappointing: Far from being sweet chili, they looked more like your run-of-the-mill salt & pepper wings, albeit with some sweet chili sauce on the side. Taste-wise, they were okay, but inconsistent. Some wings had a nice exterior crunch and juicy inside while others were dry – almost mummified like the dead in a cemetery (okay, am I running that one into the ground? Ha!). The wings were also accompanied by house-cut chips, but they weren’t good at all; rather, they were overcooked (burnt) and yet somehow managed to get soggy. To be fair, I wasn’t expecting high end snack treats given the location, but surely they could do a bit better than this? On the bright side, at least service was friendly, though a bit cluttered due to the mass of people converging on the eatery. FOOD: 2.5/5 SERVICE: 3/5 VALUE: 3/5 RECOMMENDATION: Given that I was only here for wings and a beverage, it’s kind of difficult to judge the overall character of this restaurant; however, given the look of their menu and other comments on this site and those like it, it’s probably fair to say this place is your typical hotel family-style restaurant. In other words, it’s not anything fancy, but probably comes in handy after a long day of travel. PS: If you found this review helpful in any way please consider hitting the "helpful" button!More