Dio Mio — Restaurant in Denver

The food was good but a bit strange. The service was fine and had a strange format. It’s a high price for food that’s all a little funky and a lack of table service. It has that atmosphere that packed bars get where everyone in the restaurant is yelling a little and the servers are a little frantic.

Service: They’re nice, just are not enough staff for a Friday night and a weird format. You go up to the counter to order and open a tab. You’ll order your food and drinks at the bar and then they do “table service” as in they run your food and then you otherwise don’t see them again. You can see them from the bar, but they don’t check on the table, refill water, let you order more items, get a check, etc unless you flag someone down. It was a bit chaotic and unorganized.

Food: it was Italian.. ish? Almost like fusion. So definitely not classic flavors and not the best Italian in the city. It is one of the the more expensive spots I’ve been to. We ordered the chicken parm, which was spicy! There’s a sort of ratatouille on top, def not a classic chicken parm. The spaghetti itself was great. The focaccia and sides were amazing, although if you order two appetizers, it only comes with one serving of bread which I thought was just a strange choice. Why not get bread for each of the $10 starter plates? I’m assuming if one table ordered one of those they’d each get bread. That wouldn’t matter too much if you had a dedicated server but it’s more of a whoever you can flag down will help you situation so we got a little more bread near the end of our meal.

Atmosphere: it was crowded, but not cozy intimate, it’s more like the energy of a packed bar with the format of a cozy restaurant. You had to yell a bit to talk at your table, just adding to the noise. I wouldn’t say it’s a date restaurant unless you’re at the place with the date that you don’t need to talk much during the meal. And without a dedicated server and the weird ordering system we felt a bit lost and confused. Again, for the price I think they’d be able to have another server or two on staff, or provide a more comfortable experience so customers don’t feel confused and in the way.

All in all, I won’t be back again. It’s overpriced and the service format is just weird and leaves you feeling like you’re on your own but also in a constant crowd. I could see it as a good spot...

Firstly I would like to start by saying that I have worked in the restaurant industry for over a decade in many capacities, having cooked served, managed and everything else you could imagine. Immediately greeted at the door with disdain for our presence, our time at Dio Mio did not start well. Having never been to the restaurant, but also having heard of the great quality of food, I moved past the initial negative experience at the door to allow the food to do the talking. We were asked to choose our own seats, told that we need to leave in 90 minutes and get out of our seats and go to the counter to order, weird, but okay, I shake this off. We order a starter, two entrees and a bottle of wine; Just under a hundred dollars. Just after paying I see a sign letting us know that we could have had a comparable bottle of wine for half off, saving me 20. This irks me as neither the rude hostess or the cashier let me know that this house special was happening. Again, I move on, a little more frustrated, but still hungry and excited to try the food, and not wanting to dampen the mood on my date. Finally our food comes out and I will say it was great. From start to finish the food was great. Full flavors and very obviously very well thought out recipes. About halfway through our meal (and I’ll say we arrived around 7:50 and at about 8:20 our beloved hostess came) and not politely interrupted my date and tried to get us to take boxes to leave, despite having most of half or most of our food left and having not even finished our first glass of regular priced wine. We attempted to continue our evening after a chuckle at how we were being treated and the evening went on. We were allowed 20 more minutes before she came back and without saying anything started to try and take our food from us. My date, being the nice one, politely asked for a couple of boxes, just wanting to oblige our service and leave. In a huff she brought it back and left it south out saying anything. We see her leave 5 minutes after, at 8:45. The motive was clear. I hope whatever she had to do that required her to leave early was really fun. I recommend...

Modern Counter Service (?) This should be more elaborately explained on their Google maps. There was a hostess that seated us. The music was so loud only my friend, who I dined with, was able to hear the instructions she gave. We asked for the music to be turned down since we were the only guests when we were seated. They kindly turned it down for us.

Counter service means: after you get seated, you look at the menu, then get back up, stand in line and order. (Like having assigned seating at Panera.) This was awkward for me since I had a unique coat and purse situation. I'm not very comfortable leaving much unattended while I go stand in line. My friend and I paid separately so we both had to leave the table. Counter service also means you tip when you order so hedge your bets. And if you need something, like black pepper, you get back up in line and ask at the counter. My food got a bit colder as I waited for one family of 5 to order. Luckily, I only had one family in line before me. I was the last person in line at the moment and the cashier kindly got me a small dish of pepper.

I enjoyed my pasta, although I needed the black pepper to cut the sweetness of the lemon. This is not a dig on their food since I have a love of pepper and less love of lemon. My friend tested my dish and said it was very "fresh" tasting. Her dish was good, but dry. We both thought it was a great flavor, but too dry.

The table was a good size for what I understand now as counter service and the cold metal chairs that are often used for outdoor seating make more sense to me now too.

Knowing what I know now, I would go back again, but it treat this as a jump up from Panera. The food is clearly meant to be a higher level, but the service is...