INIZIO — Restaurant in Buffalo

I will say that the ingredients used here are fresh and delicious. The food is clearly carefully crafted. However I don't see this restaurant going the distance. The positive qualities listed above are qualities shared by many of buffalo's best restaurants (toutant, mothers, osteria, hutch's etc).

Where inizio gets left in the dust is in the portion size to price point ratio and an extremely limited menu. I'm not one to complain about spending money on a fantastic meal. When I go out I'm going out to spend money and treat myself and friends. But when the entire party leaves still hungry including 2 petite women after splitting 3 small plates and each having an entree I think that's a problem.

The pastas while flavorful and well thought out are small, so small I don't know if they can truly be called entrees. They are at best lunch size portions. I'll only speak to my personal dish as I didn't sample my friends' to a great degree.

I had the squid ink linguine. It was as I said before very tasty, but leading the entrees at a price of $22 had 4 of the tiniest rock shrimp I've ever seen, I will not complain about the amount of crab as it flavored the entire dish perfectly, but I'm not sure I received a single clam. The amount of protein and pasta together for the price was very disappointing. Half of the pastas sitting at the 17$ price point don't have any protein at all. Cacio e Pepe for 17$ is absurd. It must be $6 of pepper cheese and pasta and $11 for the truffle oil.

All told 3 entrees 3 cocktails and 3 small plates +20% gratuity came to $155. For scale I recently had brunch at toutant where we ordered 3 small plates, 3 entrees and 5 cocktails and the entire meal + 20% gratuity came to 130 and we were essentially full for the rest of the day.

This is a spot that does a decent job of putting forth quality dishes but at an absurdly premium price. I could've spent a similar amount of money at osteria, tappo, or tempo and left full, even with leftovers. So unless you're aiming for a light meal for the price of a full meal maybe...

Inizio does a lot well. Their apps and deserts are memorable and were the most enjoyable part of the meal, in my opinion.

The carpaccio was high quality, perfectly chilled, and the emulsion and crouton on top was a nice addition to an already very satisfying dish.

Our friends got asparagus and broccolini and enjoyed both, but I think the entire table agreed that the poached asparagus and yellow potatoes with gribiche sauce was the clear winner. The flavors were reminiscent of an elevated potato salad, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Get the country pan bread and butter. It had the perfect salty crust with a pillowy inside. I'd come back for this bread alone.

Among the four of us, we got the cacio e pepe, shrimp pesto, and vodka pasta. In each, the pasta was well executed but the dishes all felt to be lacking an ingredient or two. The cacio e pepe was creamy and the pasta the perfect texture, but it was oversalted given that the cheese brings its own salty bite. Some lemon to cut the richness would have been great. I truthfully only had a bite of the vodka pasta, which was enjoyable so not much to report there. The shrimp pesto was good but for $28 the quality and size of shrimp was underwhelming. When I think shrimp pesto, I think a few large sauteed shrimp instead we got extra small shrimp (61/70 count) that were hard to find in an otherwise yummy dish. This would have been perfectly fine if the dish wasn't $28.

A number of reviewers seem to think dishes are too small; that was not my experience. Each main and app was well plated and appropriately sized with the exception of the missing shrimp.

Lastly, the desserts are a must. The panna cotta and the mini almond cake are delightful. The peach preserves with the almond cake paired so well with the salty brown butter ice cream. My only complaint... I wanted more.

Will I be back? Absolutely, but largely because the apps and desserts were...

Had dinner there with my husband for his birthday on a Tuesday evening. We read great reviews and were looking forward to trying it. I am pregnant so upon arrival there were some things on the menu I didn’t feel totally comfortable eating - mostly, a majority of the appetizers. I asked our waitress if I could just have some bread to pick on while my husband ate the apps he ordered. She came back and told me the chef said no...I tried to be understanding but honestly - they couldn’t spare a few pieces of bread? Maybe 15 minutes later, my husband heard a different waitress tell her table that they offer bread and butter for an upcharge. So we were kind of just like, what is going on here. We each ordered pasta for our entree...when mine came out I asked for some extra Parmesan and was told that’s a .50 charge. Lol...very strange. When they brought out the Parmesan it wasn’t even the fresh grated that was on my dish, it was just what comes in the Kraft container at Tops. Also thought it was interesting that the man next to me ordered an extra side of crushed red pepper and he wasn’t told there was an upcharge. Additionally, my food was not warm. At that point, we were over the entire dinner and looking back now we both felt we should have just left. Definitely a bummer for a birthday night out - skipped dessert so we could get out of there. We enjoy the Buffalo food scene a lot, and this was just a really strange experience. For the prices, you think they would maybe attempt to accommodate normal requests at an Italian restaurant. You’re better off at Tempo, Lombardo’s, Osteria, etc. We will...