EXCEPTIONAL in many ways! AUTHENTIC though welcoming and not pretentious. Worthy of a detour. Certainly easier (and cheaper) to come to Fredericksburg and eat here than fly to Italy and drive from Rome an hour or two into the outlying countryside to find this kind of food.
Quick to locate (just up the street and across from the Pacific War museum). Convenient street parking if one gets there early enough. Lovely dining rooms with understated decoration.
Everything we tried on the menu was outstanding. Excellent, attentive service. Portions are somewhere between "old world" and "new world" sizes so, come hungry as the pasta dishes are more than an "appetizer size" though not "meal by itself". Desserts are definitely still "american size" so meant to be shared, making trying more than one a bit of an adventure after the other three courses. That doesn't even begin to cover what makes this place truly unique, however.
The owner is Italian (from there, not merely related to someone who is or someone who lived there 100 years ago). His family has been in the restaurant business for generations and he did his formal training there (where they are serious about such things). After navigating the corporate restaurant world he struck out on his own to create this (can't blame him, I would like to leave Houston too (!)). It is a little slice of Italy transplanted into the Hill Country. Carefully curated seasonal menu which, though there is the ubiquitous "tirami su" (at least here in two forms, the strawberry one being delightful) is not a compendium of tourist favorites. In fairness, that dessert has become routine in Italy as well (I lived there for large parts of my life and saw this change in real time). Picture a small restaurant out in a small town in Italy and this is what it would be like (though I suspect their specialization in Gin based drinks would be an outlier there as well).
Beyond his personal experience you have to realize that he gets his chefs from Italy directly, they have done their culinary school there, so this isn't someone cooking who just learned about it on line or from someone who may or may not have ever been there. In fact some of the serving staff was also born and raised in Italy where they train people to wait tables in schools rather than have them learn it (or not learn it) on the job.
In addition, the quality is what one would expect in Italy (not at tourist places in Italy, mind you, in places actual Italians would eat). Italian cuisine is not about flashy preparation/presentation, rather, uncomplicated recipes made from the best possible ingredients available. They are true to this ethos.
For example, they source the pistachios of the home made ice cream there (and will be having pecan ice cream using the pecans from the trees in their own backyard shortly, in the fall). Likewise, the fresh ricotta inside their (seasonal) ravioli, though made in New Jersey [to preserve freshness], is made by that firm using Italian milk.
In any case, it's a unique experience compared to most places that claim to serve Italian food and a version of Italian cuisine unlike that which people will be generally familiar with (which is at best "Italian inspired" when not truly trash like Olive Garden and its clones).
