Dario's Ristorante — Restaurant in Fitchburg

My experience from December 2015 at Dario's Ristorante in Fitchburg: I have been wanting to go to Dario's for a long time (since they opened) mostly because nearly everyone that has been there in our Facebook group Discussing Fitchburg Now raves about it (and posts pictures which is all the better to fuel my jealousy). Got there are 7:30pm Saturday evening... place was quite busy.... most tables full... but not full enough to have to wait. Nice ambiance...comfy/cozy, nice enough to dress up but laid back enough to wear jeans. They have a nice low-top full bar next to where the chef cooks which looks nice to sit at.... The restaurant temperature was warm which was nice---so often i have to wear my jacket in restaurants because they keep it so cold! Dario's was toasty warm... I appreciated it. They brought the drinks and a basket of bread right out of the oven with oil and Parmesan cheese....loved that. So good. I got a Dario Espresso Martini (Black) which was good and my spouse got a Peroni (Italian beer). Ordered a fried ravioli appetizer... came with marinara sauce... was fast and excellent. Good sauce... perfect raviolis stuffed with cheese. mmMm We got the Salmon Grand Mariner special with fettuccine and the 14oz New York Strip Steak Special with Risotto... the chef walked over and started making our meal to order... he was very nice and asked us personally how it was...and it was excellent. The steak was cooked perfectly (so i heard from all the satisfied noises)...and the risotto was also delicious and perfect. My Salmon was also delicious and the fettuccine had this sauce that was ridiculous good...kinda sweet, very creamy....I ate was too much and had to literally push it away so i'd stop.... got that doggie bag to go ;-)

The place closed kinda early... we were the last table and left around 8:30pm. So don't go late... Two thumbs up for sure... The general consensus is correct. The food was worth...

Very nice bar area. Decent small menu which any competent brigade should be able to execute easily. NOT the case here! She ordered Chicken Piccata and I Eggplant Parm. You eat with your eyes first and let me tell you her dish looked like 4oz total of tan slop plopped on top of a large puddle of oil with a tiny pile of what they called Risotto and it was loose and had an old and off taste. The Piccata was loaded with Briney canned artichokes along with a ton of lemon and capers which made for a very unbalanced sour sauce obviously. Don’t add those damn artichokes! And add some garlic for everyone’s sake, a little chicken stock, white wine, and a LITTLE lemon, not the whole lemon for one plate! Also believe it or not, a bit of sugar at the end balances out the whole dish- try it. My Eggplant Parm was a disaster ! It consisted of 4 layers of previously frozen and stale sliced eggplant stacked without sauce or cheese of any kind 4 layers high and finished with sauce on top with some Mozzarella. The sauce was very bitter and out of balance- again the work of inexperience. The Rigatoni was so chewy that it wasn’t palatable . Perhaps the worst part though was that my Eggplant wasn’t even up to temp to properly serve in the middle. And I must say portion sizes are sub 3 oz meat and 2-3 for carb/starch. Prices are out of whack for the area one would think. Upon leaving we were confronted by the Owner and after he seemed a bit aggressive in tone with my wife I took over and told him these things, and he proceeded to say someone must have forgot of whatever. What Napoleon should have done is offer us our money back or a free dessert or hell one of those slices of that bread you serve (which ain’t nothing like the focaccia at Papa Razzi) but instead talked about days gone by and made excuses for his “brigade” . Serious eaters and anyone not wanting to get ripped off...

Went for dinner last night. First, the good: Fast, pleasant and entirely competent service! Aslo - a beautiful and airy-feeling uncrowded dining room. The restaurant was just as clean as could be. I loved the great cloth napkins lightly starched and so smooth to the touch with the spotless and lovely table linens. Our waitress was attentive and charming. We had the veal piccata with risotto and quartered artichoke hearts and capers. It was actually perfect, so generous a serving and very tender meat with the lightest of coatings in the perfect picatta sauce, delicious. Small complaint that is probably only my own personal quirk but I did not love the extra slices of parm on top of the risotto - it felt like a gilded lily. Extra cheese suggests the cook is not confident in the flavor and the quality, in my entirely subjective opinion. The Chef should know his/her/their veal piccata is a stand out.

The bad: The veal marsala and pasta and mushrooms was flat and the veal was both heavily breaded and unpleasantly chewy. It was surprising that both these veal dishes came from the same kitchen. I wondered if one was prepared by "the real chef" and the other by his third cousin on his mother's side brought in at the last minute to see if s/he could cook? We were not that hungry so we took the veal marsala home for the dog. Wine and service was very good but the bread was shockingly awful - a kind of an odd and cheap/dry/day-old tasteless sliced "bun" affair. The tap water smells funny and the music was entirely too loud. We were one of 2 couples in the dining room and although I commented several times about the volume, there was no offer to lower the sound which seemed odd to me. I have a hard time imagining going back there on purpose but maybe I'll forget about what bugged me and just remember the pretty room and that really nice veal piccata...