Recently moved to Queen Creek and Baci is Queen Creek-adjacent. Had done my research on new places to try and this was at the top of the list, plus had a rave review from my brother.
We have two restaurant.com gift certificates to use at Baci but they are for lunch Tuesday through Thursday and we wanted Italian food tonight so we just went for it at full price. Well worth it!
Got there a little before 7:00 pm and had about a 7 minute wait. The tables weren't all full but it looked like they were mainly seating in booths and leaving the tables open for larger parties. The wait wasn't bad and the owner came over and talked to the couple ahead of us and when they were seated, turned his attention to us. He is very charming and great at making his guests feel welcome and comfortable.
The decor is nice and the booths are roomy and comfortable with high backs that afford privacy and would be great for a romantic date. There was no music playing when we first arrived but someone turned it on about halfway through our meal and it was old standards, very nice and relaxing.
Also TVs positioned all around with sports on so if you're into watching TV while waiting for your meal, you can certainly catch some type of sporting event.
Now for the important part--the food!
Appetizer - Fried Ravioli: The ravioli themselves were okay and probably the only reason I am not giving Baci 5 stars. They weren't bad but they weren't great either. However the marinara that accompanied them was OUTSTANDING. Entrees are served with a choice of soup or salad so I'll throw my opinion of those in here too. I had the salad with Italian dressing. The greens were crisp and fresh, lots of romaine and a few other baby greens. I am not a fan of croutons but Baci's are obviously made in house and were delicious. The Italian dressing was slightly creamy and tart and just outstanding. My husband had a cup of the soup of the day, which was meatball. He loved it and the one little taste I had was very flavorful.
Bread: Kind of odd to have the bread come out after the appetizer but it was a wonderful crusty loaf of ciabatta with butter. There was oil and vinegar at the table if we'd wanted to dip the bread instead of using butter but I am a huge butter fan. Swiping the marinara off the plate after eating the fried ravioli was heavenly!
Entrees -- Lasagna with Meat Sauce and Linguine with Shrimp and Scallops in Garlic Butter Sauce: I'll go with the easy one first. The lasagna was at least seven layers with lots of gooey mozzarella on top and the meat sauce was so very good. I could barely make it through half before I gave up and had the rest boxed up to bring home. Leftover lasagna is one of the best things ever! Now on to the Linguine. The linguine and seafood list was extensive and I know how my husband loves that combination so I pointed it out to him fully expecting he'd choose the option with shrimp and scallops. I would never order such a thing because usually Italian restaurants overcook the seafood. But he is more forgiving than I so he went for it. There were six sauce choices and my husband went for the garlic butter sauce. Excellent choice! I had just a bite of the linguine with sauce initially and could have eaten a whole bowl of that. Finally gave in and sampled a scallop and a shrimp and both were sweet and cooked perfectly. What a fabulous dish! Totally changes my opinion of seafood dishes at an Italian restaurant.
Dessert -- Limoncello Cake: We were stuffed but agreed to look at the dessert menu anyway. I was ambivalent but my husband loves dessert and then our server mentioned the Limoncello Cake that wasn't even listed on the menu. She said it was the best thing and she was completely right. When it first came out I was thinking the cake might be dense and a little dry and then I took a bite and it was light and airy and lemony. Sublime. We should have ordered two slices. I also ordered a cup of coffee and even that was wonderful. I had to fight my husband for the coffee because he wanted to try one sip and kept going back for more. Luckily he's not supposed to have caffeine so he finally had to stop.
The service was good but I think our server may have been under the weather because she and the owner had a little convo at the server station next to our booth and he was trying to send her home. She was still pleasant and attentive but you could tell she might be having an off night. Every server and bus person I saw seemed to have a great attitude.
Our total for all of this and two soft drinks was around $70 including a slightly above 20% tip. I'd say pricing-wise things are just about what you'd expect for excellent quality food.
Obviously with gift certificates to use we will be going back but even if we didn't, we'd want to go.