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| - I had been looking forward to trying Stagioni since they opened, so maybe my expectations were too high? They called to confirm our Saturday at 7:00 p.m. reservation earlier in the day, and when we arrived, there was no one at the hostess stand. We waited... and waited... and waited. Finally, a random waiter came over to greet us. He grabbed menus, told us to follow him, and walked into the dining room... where he promptly turned around to tell us our table wasn't ready yet. So, back into the bar we walked. We grabbed a seat at the bar and realized that the dining room looked awfully crowded and noisy, so we decided that we should just sit in the bar when the waiter came back to tell us our table was now ready. We decided to just sit at a table in the bar.
Service got a little better from there, but the bartender - who was waiting on us - seemed pretty overwhelmed most of the evening since she seemed to be the only one making drinks and waiting on the bar patrons.
The food was good. We started with a meat and cheese tray, which was tasty. For dinner, I had the rigatoni entree - the pasta was a little dense/heavy, but the creamy tomato sauce with bacon was smoky and delicious - and the fella got the quail - which was pretty tasty and rare to find on a menu. For dessert, we took the bartender's suggestion and got the zeppoli (light, flaky, Italian donuts) with salted caramel gelato, which the fella said was the best thing he ate all night, and I said was too salty to eat.
The architecture is pretty cool, and I almost felt like I was in a castle or an old church. The ceilings had really cool exposed wooden beams, and the lights all had red globes, which made everything very dark and sexy. Seating in the dining area is a little tight and a little loud, so we thought the bar was where it was at, but there was also a pizza bar at the back of the dining room that looked pretty cool, too.
I think I'll give them another couple of months before I try them again, but I was just a little let down on my first visit.
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