Lo Stella Ristorante — Restaurant in Denver

Che Buono! Moltissimo Autentico!

I was immediately taken back to the summer I spent in Italy. The host and relative of the proprietor greeted us in Italian with open arms!  "Buona Sera Signori." My partner, Bob and our dear friend, Marlene and I wanted to try a new highly-rated restaurant that we had never experienced. This exceeded our expectations.

Location: Golden Triangle (11th and Bannock). Plenty of street parking on a Wednesday night.

Ambiance: Warm and inviting. Slightly upscale, but not pretentious.

Server: Shayla was awesome! She didn't present as Italian, but had a lot of knowledge of everything on the menu. She gave us some great advice and recommendations. Even when a large group walked through the door into her section, she still gave us all the attention we needed.

Food!: So good!! The menu is formatted in the traditional multi-course Italian style. This can seem daunting or really expensive to first-time diners of this cuisine. However, one shouldn't feel the need to order from each category. Italian eating is all about sharing and experiencing.

Appetizer: We started with a charcuterie plate. It was large and had some of my favorites: prosciutto, mortadella, salami, mozzarella, brie, and parmesan.  Nothing crazy or adventurous, but I really appreciated the simplicity and quality.

Pasta: All pasta is handmade and some options sell out quickly. They had already run out of the gnocchi. Marlene ordered the Tagliatelle Bolognese, a thin linguine-like pasta with the owner's grandmother's meat sauce. I ordered the special of the evening, which was a taglarini (almost angel hair thin) pasta cooked with sauteed mushrooms, truffle oil then swirled in a giant parmesan-rind bowl. This last step was prepared out in the middle of the restaurant, pretty cool to watch. It was incredibly rich and creamy... Bob and I both agreed that was the best thing we tasted that night.

Entree: Since we split the two pastas, we only ordered one true entree which was Chicken Milanese. The chicken was lightly breaded and moist.

Drinks: We ordered a bottle of Chianti. It was fabulous! It was definitely a higher brow Chianti, but it really hit the spot.

Desserts: We shared two desserts: the lemon tart, and the panna cotta with caramel sauce. Both were amazing! I preferred the lemon, while Bob like the panna cotta better.

Our friend Marlene who travels all the world was very impressed; she wants to come back to this place when she visits Denver again in May.

The mother restaurant is located in Portofino, Italy. It is the oldest restaurant in that location. For eight generations this family has been bringing amazing food to the world. Alessandro took this restaurant concept to Tokyo for a few years, and then brought it to Denver where they just celebrated a 4th year anniversary. Alessandro has only one request: “Please don’t ask me for Alfredo sauce, Meatball Spaghetti or chicken in the pasta, we are...

This authentic Italian restaurant always impresses…

Lo Stella Ristorante stands as one of my favorite restaurants in Colorado; they offer the most authentic Italian cuisine & their recipes have been passed down for generations. One of their newer features is the Pasta Dalla Forma where their freshly cooked pasta is finished in a large cheese wheel before being served (note this is done in the kitchen, but patrons can observe their pasta being tossed through the kitchen window).

We arrived at Lo Stella and were seated at the front of the restaurant, next to the main bay window. Lo Stella's aesthetic is classic Italian - intimate & relaxed with natural shades of oak & mahogany throughout the space.

Restaurant staff - Iris, Luca & Leo - led us through our meal. All of them were so amazing and knowledgeable on the menu (Lo Stella’s staff is known for making customers feel like family). Owner, Alessandro was inhouse and was incredible (per usual). It was a busy Friday night, and he was active on the restaurant floor ensuring every customer and every member of his staff had what they needed.

Alessandro started us off with prosecco - salute!

For cocktails, Ashley and I had the Italian Cosmo made with vodka, grand marnier, cranberry juice, & lime. The Cosmos were delightfully refreshing & sweet with balancing sour from the lime.

For Antipasta we had the Caprese Di Bufala Campana Dop and the Prosciutto Di Parma E Burrata Pugliese. The Caprese featured mozzarella that was bright & creamy. The taste of the cheese was cut by the acidity of the juicy tomatoes & aromatic basil. The prosciutto appetizer combined creamy burrata & delicately salty prosciutto that everyone loved.

The Spaghetti Cacio E Pepe was prepared ‘Pasta Dalla Forma’ in the cheese wheel and was made with butter, toasted peppercorn, and pecorino romano. Sharp and salty with a bit of spice from the freshly cracked pepper, this pasta celebrated the flavors of the classic Roman dish. The spaghetti was beautifully textured from the pecorino cheese - so good.

The Ravioli di Pesce in Crema di Gamberi is homemade Fish Ravioli with creamy shrimp sauce (a recipe that has been used since 1940). The Ravioli is my favorite dish at Lo Stella. The homemade raviolis delicately enveloped a lovely sea bass filling. The mild sea bass was a great match for the decadent shrimp sauce. When all the raviolis had been devoured, we used the shrimp sauce left on the plate for our bread. A must order!

The filet was served with Italian raclette on top. The filet was cooked perfectly and the raclette made for a luxurious topping with epic cheese pulls.

The Taglierini Verdi Al Funghi E Polpo was made with homemade spinach taglierini with octopus, mushrooms, & white wine. A beautiful veggie pasta enriched with a mix of earthy mushrooms & tender octopus.

For dessert we had Espresso Martinis - the perfect ending to a...

This place was on the top 3 I recommended my friend we try out for her birthday as she wanted Italian so when she said Lo Stella I was soooo excited!! We had a reservation for 6 @ 8:15 pm and when my friend arrived around 7:45-7:50 she informed the rest of us that were not there yet that there was no room to wait inside so she was going to go wait in the car. By 8:05 we were all there and could not get seated as we were early and they had no other tables for 6 available. We could not wait at the bar either since there was not enough space for all of us to sit and grab a drink. We waited outside until about 8:35 pm. Once seated our server greeted us right away and apologized for the wait. We ordered 2 of the bread baskets for the table while we waited to decided on drinks and dinner. Our server did let us know those would be on her as we had to wait which we did appreciate however, I didn’t dare to ask but I’m pretty sure the bread was suppose to be at least warm not cold. We each had about a piece and a half and found it good tasting bread just as I mentioned- cold. (It was more like a pizza bite with onions and mushrooms is you ask me) After ordering drinks and trying them ( I believe mine was the best out of the 4 alcoholic options that was ordered) I had the Italian 75, and trying the appetizers (got the salmon special appetizer - nothing special just salmon locks over arugula and the clams in white wine sauce which were also just okay) we ordered dinner and needed up getting our food about 9:35 pm. We ordered the mushroom ravioli, the seafood ravioli, the Cacio e Pepe, Taglierine con gamberi and the Tagliatelle with Lamb Ragu (they were out of the Gnocchi pasta so could no order the Gnocchi Al pesto) I was debating between the Cacio e Pepe and as I saw on their Instagram that you could request the Bucatini alla Carbonara without being on the menu- but most reviews on the last tik tok I saw about this place pointed towards the Cacio e Pepe I went for it. I was so disappointed on all the dishes I tried which was all of them except the Taglierine con gamberi - specially mine. It looked good but then when I tasted it I was like- no way this is it. Did not care to finish it and boxed it to bring it home for the BF to try. We did not get dessert but our server did treat us to lemon drop shots and that was probably the best thing of the entire meal! For a pasta plate with no meat or season or even veggies at all that’s over $30 - my selection of the night left so much room for everything else but me wanting more of it. Maybe it was an off night- but I was not left with any desire to go back...