Quartino Ristorante — Restaurant in The Colony

LOVE this place- read on if you want but TL;DR - the food, service, and prices are all the best. Celiac friendly as well. Family style (aka order for the table, not just you. But you can do whatever you want). Best espresso ever!

We went on a Wednesday during happy hour months ago and fell in love. We go to restaurants maybe twice a year for dates because we go all out- multiple drinks and courses. So no matter where we go it gets expensive. That said, for the atmosphere, fantastic service, and best italian food this side of the Mississippi, the prices are astonishingly reasonable and honestly quite low. My husband has a gluten intolerance, not celiac but has to heavily avoid significant amounts. They have their own separate gluten free menu that is easily available online and at the tables! He regularly gets the gluten free fusili (he works nearby) for lunch to go. His favorite is italian and I have never seen this man so happy in a restaurant lol. ANYWAY when he finally took me, I ordered cozze alla siciliana (Sicilian style mussels) as an appetizer. When dropped it off and we put in our main orders- the truffle risotto for me and the gluten free fusili for my husband- the waitress quickly asked to verify if it was an allergy or if he just preferred it. He said allergy (he hadn't learned the difference yet) and she immediately went to switch out the oysters because they had toast on top! We did backtrack with "wait no!" He is only trying one and really anything less than teaspoon seems to be fine. This type of care of gluten free has happened at a few places, but man it is nice to see the staff take an effort to avoid cross contamination to the degree the waitress explained. End of gluten free rant.

I don't even like risotto, but smother anything in enough truffles and truffle oil and I am in love. Normally anything under $75 labeled as "truffle" is just covered in truffle flavored oil. But for $18 they had a huge plate of actually good risotto with REAL TRUFFLE flakes??!!! I ask my husband to pick it up to-go at least once a month.

To end it all, I got a shot of espresso since I knew we had a late night, and my husband got the vanilla gelato. I was stuffed, but he loved the gelato. But the espresso?! It is served (as what I now know) is espresso romano style. It has an lemon peel and sugar on the side. I was somewhat familiar with it as a former barista, but I spritz the top with the lemon peel and drank it sans sugar. It was actually delicious unlike any other espresso I had to try and force down for the sake of caffeine. Maybe it is because I am used to local cafes and starbucks. My best note on the espresso is that it was served at an actually drinkable temperature! That is everything that stood out to me from the first visit. From the second visit: It can get veryyyyy busy, especially on weekends. When we went on a Friday night (it was also a table of 6) it was packed to the brim and we could hardly hear ourselves think. Food and service was still the same, but I would recommend going during the weekdays (or maybe not, so that way it is still calm and quiet when I go lol). It is popular for a...

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Been wanting to try this new Italian spot at Grandscape for a while but left extremely disappointed. Visited on a Saturday around 1pm and sat on the bar side of the restaurant. They were not very busy but the service was still pretty slow. After finally getting to order our drinks we waited another 15 minutes to order our food. We ordered a Margherita pizza to start followed by a risotto and mussels. The food took a little bit so we checked on our pizza which shouldn't take very long and were told it would be right out. About 25 minutes after ordering our mussels came out followed by our risotto 5 minutes later (not sure why food didn't come at the same time). A manager came over to check on us and we asked about the pizza which he told us had been burnt so they made another one which would be out in about 5 minutes. We ended up finishing our entrees and went to order more bread for the mussel broth when we asked about the pizza again. Another manager came over making excuses and telling it had been burnt (already heard that 20 minutes prior) and that ours was coming. I said the risotto takes 4 times longer than pizza and we had seen 5 or 6 other pizzas come before ours that was being made for the last 45 minutes. He then proceeded to tell me that their risotto is made in 4 to 5 minutes...with a straight face and being completely serious. Then told me that their pizzas take 10 minutes to cook. So this miracle restaurant can make 2 risottos in the time it takes to make 1 pizza!! They offered free dessert and the pizza to go but we had a movie to make it to. I asked for the check and declined the dessert but he insisted. I left for the bathroom and upon returning no check or dessert had been brought but a third manager had come to talk to my girlfriend. I reiterated that we needed to go at which time I was told they comped the meal (but never brought dessert, which I didn't want, but insisted on giving to us). Just before we left the pizza finally arrived at which time they boxed it up to go at the table (over an hour after ordering it). Disappointed in the service time, lack of follow-up or real care by management and the lies given (just tell me you forgot to put in my pizza and no risotto can be made in 5 minutes...seriously!!). Also, the food was average at best. The drinks were good and came out quickly which was the only positive point of the meal. We ended up leaving the waitress a $20 tip as we had no idea what the total was but the service provided did not...