Bacco | Trattoria & Mozzarella Bar — Restaurant in Boulder

We've eaten here twice now and I haven't been pleased either time.

The latest (yesterday) my dish was so salty that it was inedible... tasted so salty it feels like it either had to be done on purpose or that the chef accidentally dropped the salt shaker into the sauce and forgot about it. I ordered the rigatoni w/ prosciutto, asked for roasted garlic instead of red onions. To make matters worse, our young waitress dropped off the food and never returned to check on us until what seemed about 30 minutes later.

Things I don't like about this place:

They've a mozzarella bar, but all the mozarella bar dishes force you to select two other things like tomatoes or olives. Why can't we get mozzarella alone, or mozzarella and meat, and call it a day?

Mozzarella doesn't even feature prominently in their own dishes. That rigatoni I mentioned above, why doesn't it have big pieces of mozzarella by default?

Most of their dishes are seafood- and meat- heavy, or have mushrooms (not a vegetable). Very little besides salads for a vegetarian to love here. This is strange to me, since Boulder is full of vegetarians and vegans.

Wine by the glass here is a complete rip-off imo. I could see maybe spending $13+/glass for a bottle of Michael David Rapture somewhere, but the wine list I saw is absurd at these prices. It feels like this restaurant hates their customers and wants to treat them with utter contempt.

Finally, the atmosphere is very LOUD. The ceiling here is the worst material and acoustics for a restaurant. We were situated near a table of cackling women and I got cold chills down my neck with each ensuing loud cackle. The entire place was just...

For at least 2 years now, my boyfriend and I frequent Bacco usually on Friday evenings for a 6pm dinner. Jonathan is the manager/bartender. He’s a real people person, remembers my boyfriend’s particular drink he likes, and we see lots of people come in to see Jonathan before getting seated.

I’ve found my favorite dish, which is fairly new to the menu—Chicken Pasta Puttanesca. It’s my regular now :) Everything I love in a pasta dish: lots of tomato, capers, olives, tangy and saucy. Yum.

My only critique is I wish they would mix the chicken in with the sauce so the meat gets saturated with the rest of the dish. It can get dry before the sauce picks up the slack.

Charles likes to mix up his dishes, and he says he’s had pleasant meals almost every time. There was one time with a lobster that was not good, so he avoids the shellfish. The best meat dish he’s had is the lamb shank—soft and buttery, expertly cooked.

The wine list quite good as well. I’m not well-versed, but Charles is and seems to like it a lot. I usually get the same thing—Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Can’t get enough of it :)

This is just solid comfort food. We can count on a good meal here. It’s far enough north to be away from the Pearl Street bustle and as long as we go early enough, we...

OK restaurant overall. I'd probobly do 2.5 stars if I could. I will preface my review by acknowledging that I know restaurants are shorthanded right now due to coronavirus and thus its hard to demand much from your servers for fear of losing them.

That said here is the review of my experience.

Service: -Staff was mostly kids who didn't know the menu. -I asked if they could get us bread right away when we sat down as my wife is pregnant and needed something in her stomach quickly, it came after our apps came. Oil and herb mix for bread was good, bread itself was not. -They didn't have any idea about table numbers or seat numbers as they brought our food to the wrong table and then didn't know who had ordered what when they brought it to our table.

Appetizers: -duck and beet dish was good -calamari was insanely salty (that is to say it was not good)

Entree: -My shrimp lingini was good! Above average good. Not fireworks, but I liked it. -My wife who usually gets the spaghetti and meatballs when we go to a new Italian restaurant did just that. It was not good, sauce was thin and watery, sweet not much flavor.

Desert: -Cheese Cake was good! -Chocolate Gelato was not, seemed like it had freezer burn. -Strawberry...