Author: Jay_28

I was there in early January of 2020 with a friend as we felt like some good italian food. Also had a chance to try some of their food and it was pretty good. My review is strictly to help this place improve a little...as this place has a lot of potential but they are lacking a little in the customer service and some recipes could improve. We ordered the Fritto Misto which is the medley of deep fried breaded calamari, shrimp and fish. That was really delicious. We had it before so we definitely wanted it again. For main my friend ordered red pizza Americana which was great and I craved the risotto and that's where the disappointment started. I so badly was craving the shrimp and scallop risotto and I was hoping it would be made the traditional way made with stock and butter and parmiggiano cheese. Although there may have been those things in there, I couldn't taste them as the risotto was overcome with heavy cream which should never be added in my opinion. Risotto is made so that the starch in it should make it creamy and the only thing you should add at the end is butter and parmigiano and especially with the seafood you shouldn't be adding any cream. I even checked many recipes online by various professional chefs just to make sure, and none of them add cream. Unfortunately I had to return it which I felt bad doing but I couldn't eat it as the strong dairy flavor in it was killing it for me and I wanted to enjoy that dinner. So I really hope the owners read this and alter the recipe in the future. Some people may like it this way but if the risotto was made the traditional way I'm sure a lot more people would be satisfied with it. So to replace the risotto I ordered a white pizza Grotte. We didn't complain about that one as we felt bad but it was not tasty at all and the potatoes on it were almost raw and raw potato is not tasty. The whole pizza was not eatable for me. One of the toppings is potatoes and I tried pizza with potatoes at Fortinos and I really liked it but they pre-boil them first so the potato is almost cooked and then it tastes amazing especially if you drizzle it with some oil or butter before you bake it but on that pizza they were still raw and dry. Another disappointment was in the service. The place wasn't half full not even quarter and the waitress was hard to find most of the time. We waited for the wine I think 20 mins and 45 mins for the fried seafood appy. It's really not right and if they really want more people to come they need to work on these little things that make a good restaurant. We frequent restaurants weekly and that is the difference between the struggling ones and the thriving ones. Food has to be tasty and service attentive and quicker. We go back to the good restaurants all the time and they are always full and no wonder. They didn't charge us for the risotto of course and we paid for the pizza but we didn't eat it. The bill around $100 if I remember and we only ate the appetizer and one thin crust pizza and two glasses of wine and it's not a fine dining restaurant by any means. If the risotto was great I'd be planning another trip there in the near future for sure as this place is in our neighborhood but just for the pizza, there are a lot of good pizza places and calamari too.