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| - Came to Tutto Pronto with my family as it has become a tradition ever since my sister and I got full-time jobs to treat my parents out to a nice meal. We ventured up to Avenue Road with a Travel Zoo voucher ($49 for 2 prix fixe dinners) in hand for a night of delightful food. I have had mixed experiences with dining establishments that are featured on group buying websites. Its either the portion sizes are too small, the food is mediocre, or we are treated differently than regular-paying customers. To my surprise, the portion sizes here were generous, the food pleased even my ever-so-critical parents, and the service, though pretty lacking in the earlier part of the evening improved drastically towards the end.
The one inconvenience about its location is that street parking is usually hard to find, and the closest Green P is about 500 metres.
The service was quite slow towards the early part of the evening. They were quite busy when we arrived at 7:30PM (which is like the dining equivalent of prime time television) and the restaurant was quite full. The servers seemed to be a bit flustered and disorganized. When I presented our server with our Travel Zoo voucher, she seemed disgruntled. And this same server would have me repeating my order at least 2 times and then repeating a totally different menu item back to me. However, as the early diners vacated their tables, the service improved and the servers were friendlier towards the end of our night.
Water is pre-poured (germaphobes beware?), and the bread basket, with olive spread, butter, olive oil and balsamic are also preset at the table.
Their wine list is not epic, but its not limited either. The prices are quite reasonable.
or hip, but you can always venture downtown to a bar afterward to be seen and heard.
The prices here are quite reasonable for the quality of food you get and I will definitely be back.
For starters we tried their Roasted Beet Salad, Beef Carpaccio and Caprino Salad (mushrooms, roasted red peppers and goat's cheese). Their salads were amazing as there were warm components to it and both were very flavourful. And goat's cheese in any salad for me is super! The beef carpaccio for me, was not up to snuff. It was thin, but in a very slimy, gooey texture. It was definitely the biggest disappointment of the evening.
For mains, it would seem we were blessed with gifts from Poseidon as 4 of the 5 dishes hailed from the sea. Among them, a Seafood Risotto (x2), an 8 oz. Sirloin with Tiger Shrimps, and from the Chef's Specials: a linguini with half a lobster and shrimps, and an herb-crusted sea bass.
My word of warning, get the appetizer portion for the Seafood Risotto. Risotto itself is quite filling - you do not want to order the entrée size. My cousin was still full 4 hours later when he was about to go to bed.
As both my picky, and hard-to-impress parents would later comment "Tutto's chef knows how to cook." Everything was so flavourful. The linguini, no doubt is boiled in a seafood broth of sorts as the noodles themselves were flavourful in their own right. The tiger shrimps were perfectly grilled and had a nice char to them.
And the steak - as per my father, who almost always orders steak when he dines out - is the best steak he's tasted in any Western restaurant we've taken him to dine at thus far. Even just looking at it when it was brought to the table promised a nicely-charred, perfectly-marbled steak.
I actually found that my Mediterranean Sea Bass was the blandest in flavour, although I don't think I've ever had a whole fish before other than at a Chinese restaurant. But the flavour was anything but exciting. The accompanying side vegetables were equally savoury (no doubt also infused with a broth of sorts) and the potatoes were simple but delicious.
And to end of the evening we ordered a few cappuccinos, an espresso and a coffee brewed from the Italian Segafreddo brand. The coffee was too bland for us, the cappuccinos seemed to be the favourite, but for me the espresso was the highlight.
We ordered the Torta della Nonna (Grandmother's Cake which is made with lemon curd and pine nuts), a Chocolate Fondant Cake and a Tiramisu. While the majority at the table didn't appreciate the goodness that was Grandmother's Cake, I simply loved it. It was soft and spongy, and the lemon curd was thick and rich. The pine nuts added an interesting textural contrast. And we all loved the little Amaretti cookies that were served with coffee.
Verdict:
This restaurant received praises from all my family members and was definitely a great find. Everybody enjoyed their meal and my dad was still talking about it when he got home. It has also usurped Trapper's as our go-to restaurant for Winter/Summerlicious - another tradition that we never miss. As I mentioned, the service was a little lacklustre but the food will more than make up for it.
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