Il Cortile Ristorante — Restaurant in Paso Robles

This restaurant in Paso Robles, California, is my wife’s favorite. I decided to see for myself if it lived up to the hype, and the wine, menu, and ambiance exceeded my expectations. From the beginning, I could tell this place was reserved for special events with mood lighting, elegant table settings, and light romantic music to create the perfect atmosphere for a special date or business dinner. I was eager to start because I’d only eaten 400 calories all day in anticipation of a luxurious dinner at my 7 PM dinner reservation. Knowing I’d need to walk off all those delicious calories, I parked a mile from the downtown city park area. My culinary journey began with the superb bottle of red wine called Casanova De Neri, Brunello Di Montalcino, from a famous wine estate in central Italy. I sought the 2017 vintage, but the 2019 proved excellent with this Italian meal. The seven magnificent vineyards of Casanova di Neri in Montalcino, Italy, provide the exceptional grapes for their award-winning wines. After opening the red bottle of wine to air out, I enjoyed it with my Italian bread, olive oil, and balsamic vinaigrette. I skipped the appetizer, ordering the Herb Parmesan Risotto main course, which tasted like a delightful blend of arborio rice, butter, onion, white wine, chicken broth, and Parmesan cheese. My second main course was the Lobster Tagliolini. The taste was reminiscent of delicate angel hair pasta, fresh green vegetables, a rich mushroom sauce, and succulent lobster chunks. To end the night in a “blissful food coma”, I indulged in four-cannoli Italian dessert. I thanked the owner (Carole MacDonald) and her staff for a fantastic Italian meal and evening, then enjoyed a post-dinner walk through the Paso city park to admire the holiday Christmas lights. We plan to return to this restaurant many times. Grazie...

I'm quite frankly confused by all the positive reviews on this space. I found them to have lackluster food (at best), and offensive service.

With respect to food, I'd expect quality meals given the price point. We ordered the prosciutto and melon appetizer (fine; the prosciutto was actually good), two pastas, and a side. Both pastas were severely overcooked and under-seasoned, with no robust flavor. While the serving of truffle was generous, the flaccid pasta and lack of flavor did not merit $40 for a dish.

Exacerbating the sub-par food was the service, which was weak throughout the experience and actually offensive at times. Firstly, wait staff should always mention prices with each special - and not only did we have to ask for this information, but also our waitress didn't know this information. The cocktail waitress from the partnered Piccolo Hotel also stopped at our table three separate times to ask if we wanted a cocktail - I can appreciate proactivity, but after 3 times it actually became annoying. MOST egregiously, however, when our bill arrived our waitress immediately passed the bill to my boyfriend, assuming he'd pay. She then saw me take the bill from him and provide a card. Despite her seeing this, upon her return with the check to sign, she then passed the check immediately BACK to my boyfriend - which I again then took to sign the check.

In this day and age, the assumption that the man would pay (and reaffirmation of that assumption) I found absolutely unacceptable...

We will NEVER RETURN again only because of one person, Carole MacDonal, the co-owner.

We were so excited to visit this restaurant for the first time last night. I had made an online reservation several weeks prior to our visit. I had specifically requested a table inside the small restaurant knowing that seating outside could be dicey this time of year. We arrived on time for our reservation and was greeted by Carole. The place was busy but had several open tables inside the restaurant available. She immediately directed us to follow her outside in a make shift space that was cold and uninviting. I spoke up and told her that we didn't want to seat outside. Her comment to us was "well that's what you booked". I said no I didn't book outside. Finally she said "well our system must have defaulted to outside because inside was booked". I balked at going outside, so she said " that's all I have, take it or leave it"!!

I started to leave but my wife convinced me to give the outdoor space a try. This temporary space wasn't properly sealed up and it was really cold.

We couldn't and still don't understand the arrogance, curtness and overall lack of professionalism displayed by Carole MacDonal!

As business owners in the service business ourselves, we understand the importance of making our guests feel special, which didn't happen for...