Ristorante L'Italiano, High Point, NC

Mistaken Identity? (His View)

Before I get started I need to let you know that my wife and I are not out looking for bad restaurants. We are not trying to nit pick for the soul purpose of creative writing. A good meal, at a good price is all we are asking for. Between the two of us we make an honest living, but we are also on a tight budget like the rest of you. It would be nice to go to a white table cloth restaurant every time you go out for dinner, but good food doesn’t just hang out in the polished kitchens of a fine dinning establishment. I mean, I love a good “hole in the wall!” A place where the china only matches if you’re blind, the tables have survived 2 World Wars, and Aunt Mabel is still bringing sweet tea to the table with a smile. These are the places that I search for. The food is always great, the service…..hey.. it’s Aunt Mabel, and the atmosphere is like a scene out of Mayberry. A place like that knows who they are and they don’t change.

A pet peeve of mine is going to a restaurant that wants to be “high class” and doesn’t pay attention to the details that come with those high expectations. With the case of Ristorante L’Italiano they need to find their identity. Let me pause for a moment and paint you a picture. Imagine a black and white linoleum tile floor, old “Burger King” style booths with white table cloths, 5 waitresses running around with 5 different uniforms (I believe we only saw ours twice), and we can’t forget the standard Italian restaurant staples; old movie posters of Frank Sinatra and “The Godfather.” Now imagine paying $17 for the chicken parmesan (a $2 pre-breaded chicken breast with 50 cents worth of marinara and cheese) with your choice of frozen overcooked vegetables (25 cents worth) or pasta (maybe 10 cents). Yes, I said you have to “choose” pasta at an Italian place. The Caesar salad was a make shift blend of iceberg lettuce, assorted vegetables, and processed white cheese cut into little squares with the dressing on the side (about 90 cents total). The garlic bread was bread minus the garlic and butter (we won’t even go there). That whole description was my wife’s plate. I insisted on ordering gnocchi, the standard dish that I measure all Italian restaurants by. I got the same gnocchi I could buy at any Italian grocery store (maybe even Harris Teeter) and the same “so called” Caesar salad ($14, no vegetables just gnocchi and sauce). Just to stir things up a bit, they bring a nice lemon sorbet to cleanse your pallet between courses (10 cents tops). The sorbet is presented in a soft plastic 2oz cup that you would put your ketchup in at Arby’s (2 cents for the cup, watch out!). Overall the food tasted good for what it was, a small Italian “hole in the wall”, but the details and cost showed that L’Italiano has lost their way.