ie - Italian Eatery by Travail — Restaurant in Minneapolis

One of my favorite Italian food places in the Twin Cities, if not my favorite! I will easily rank IE (Italian Eatery) on my Top 3 list in the Italian food category. I visited here again after 8 months when I first visited it, and my experience back then was already amazing, and this time it was just out of this world. Nothing but incredible!

Instead of goat cheese ricotta, this time IE had "Casa Ricotta" which was just as good, as the ricotta had a strong goat cheese flavor. It was a delicious and filling $10 appetizer. Their artichoke dip and seasonal heirloom carrots were both amazing! The artichoke dip was more flavorful than the typical kind you would find elsewhere. The carrots tasted good by themselves already, but the honey whipped feta and the pistachio mix just added another layer of flavor. I loved carrots by themselves already, and was experience a new type of flavor when dipping the carrots in the feta mix. Loved it very much.

Now the pasta: I know their most popular is mushroom cappelletti, which I could definitely see why. It was very, very savory. The creme fraiche worked very well with the shoyu and thyme to provide a unique type of savor that totally enhanced my experience. The spaghettini nero, which I could guess was also a popular item, tasted pretty good as well! I could not complain much when it's red sauce, seafood, and squid-ink pasta combined together. The only downside was that the pasta came in a coagulated entity, not broken apart, which led me to thinking for a split second whether the pasta was frozen first. Regardless, even if it is, I have no issues with frozen food, and I thought it was delicious regardless. The seasonal Pappardello was out of this world! It exemplified many flavors and tasted both savory and sweet, in such pleasant manners. It also exemplified many textures and tasted creamy (due to the yam puree), doughy (pappardello pasta), and liquidy (honey). It single-handedly opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of food combinations and I was really inspired at that moment. My ricotta cavatelli was amazing as well, in the most conventional way. Pasta, red sauce, bolognese, just classic, and I enjoyed it very much.

The melograno chicken, man, was also out of this world! The chicken thigh had one flavor and texture, then the chicken skin had another (heavily seasoned and crispy), then combined with the creme fraiche, pomegranate, and pistachio, once again opening my eyes to the endless possibilities of food combinations, because I can tell you that I have never seen chicken made this way and it was just so good!

Finally, in terms of dessert, I enjoyed all of them! The chocolate olive oil torte, the tiramisu, the gelato from Un Dito next door, and the new Cafe Torta. They were all above average, and I would recommend each one of them. Today my partner and I tried Cafe Torta, and we liked it very much because it was diverse types of sweetness working together to achieve this dessert flavor. It wasn't just sugar on top of sugar on top of sugar, etc., and felt like the sweetness had depth. A tiny bit of the espresso gelato would go a long way with the stuff beneath it. Simply amazing.

So yeah, what else can I say? It's an amazing food spot. Highly recommend! I am very grateful for...

We truly experienced a fantastic service here, something we have never experienced anywhere in the US till date. And for that I must thanks Shaya, our server who took care of us. At the outset I must say that as described by several people before me, the food here is delicious.

We were a group of 4 and were celebrating my husband’s birthday. We ordered two tomato basil soup to share among the 4 of us. The first act of great service was that they split the 2 soups into 4 different bowls which is not common at all in the US. We also got a goat cheese ricotta for appetizers. We had enquired about the fantastic bread that came with the ricotta and Shaya promised to bring us some more of it along with our entrees. However, being a busy day she couldn’t get us the bread in time and honestly we didn’t mind that very much since we loved the food that we had ordered. For entrees we ordered a Calabrian cauliflower, sphagetti and mushroom cappelletti. All of these tasted great. The mushroom cappelletti was particularly delicious, earthy and strong. It was my favorite dish of the evening.

We felt like service was on the slower side and things were taking some time but to make up for it our server Shaya gave us a loaf of the bread that we loved so much to take home as well as waived off our soup and appetizers from the check. She really went above and beyond anything we expected and did something to make our evening truly special and spectacular. Thanks once again Shaya! My mom is very much looking forward to eating the loaf of bread !

Having said all that, the restaurant is actually very reasonably priced for the quality of food and the fantastic service. We will definitely be back here again at the earliest opportunity.

PS: The food was so delicious that I actually forgot to take any...

My partner and I were looking for a nice Italian restaurant to eat at for our first anniversary and I'm so glad we chose this place! I had asked people in a Facebook Restaurant Review group for their opinion and enough people voted for IE that I couldn't say no.

The environment was really nice; I'd say it was like a semi-casual bar/restaurant mix. The menu is really limited, but that usually means that the restaurant specializes in those particular dishes and let me tell you... that's the truth!

We started with the GOAT MILK RICOTTA and we could tell how fresh the ingredients were. There was even freshly zested lemon mixed in with the ricotta and it added a beautiful citrus kick that we both really enjoyed.

For our entrees, we ordered the RIGATONI and the BAKED GARGANELLI. Both of these were absolutely out of this world, but the Rigatoni was the star of the show! The truffle was what really made the Rigatoni dish shine. My partner and I still dream about it :)

The Baked Garganelli was truly delicious as well. The meatballs were huge and the sauce was perfect.

To finish things off, we had to split an order of Tiramisu! Tiramisu is one of my absolute favorites and our waiter was kind enough to treat us to a piece on-the-house in honor of our anniversary! It even came to our table with a little note and candle :)

Our overall experience here was delightful and I highly recommend IE to anyone looking for a great Italian restaurant in the Twin Cities area. We plan on trying several others eventually, but this place sits at the top of our list for now.

As far as the prices? They're very average for your standard upscale Italian restaurant. Appetizers and desserts were around $10 a piece and entrees ranged upwards of $20. For the quality and service, I have...