FioRito Ristorante — Restaurant in Wichita

First time trying the restaurant, the sever was wonderful. We ordered the pineapple marg, focaccia and chili honey, chicken parm, and my friend had the vegan lasagna. TLDR; proceed with caution, lack of flavor, everything we tried is super sweet/one note. Chicken parm uses thigh meat (I like thighs but they don’t belong in a chicken parm for $26)

Unfortunately we actively disliked most items, the bread was fine, a little doughy. The chili honey tasted very similar to an Asian sweet chili sauce so it was a really odd combination of flavors, I even ordered an extra side of the peanut and green onion pesto, I guess I still thought there’d be some sort of basil and it would have a touch of green onion, but it was just blended green onion. Super pungent and needed some salt or some other flavor. Honestly just give us some good olive oil with cracked pepper and salt for dipping.

The margarita.. was more like pineapple water. I’m not sure if they just forgot the lime altogether or what. No acidity was detected. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either.

The entrees, on my chicken parm asked for light red sauce. If what arrived was “light” I’d be afraid to see what the full amount is. They also use chicken thighs for some reason? If I’m paying $26 for chicken parm, give me a chicken breast. The breading was also off, I’m not sure what happened but there was a ton of it and it was hard to chew and cut through. Maybe too much cheese in the breadcrumbs? Felt like mostly breading and barely any meat. The red sauce was so thick and sweet that it ruined the rest of the dish for me. I’m not sure if they’re adding sugar, using sweet onions instead of white, or both, but it was really off-putting. The pasta said it came with an herb butter sauce, but again, most everything was crying for some salt because of the sweet. I don’t think they had enough pasta water in the butter to emulsify cause it was just oily butter on the noodles. My friend didn’t love his entree either but he didn’t tell me a whole lot about it, just that he wouldn’t bother coming back with the prices and the quality. Normally I would politely say something to the server about the food issues, but I kept TRYING to like it and had eaten/shared about half, so I didn’t feel it would be fair of me.

Overall everything did not have a good balance of flavors. the atmosphere is confusing, the plates and bowls are plastic which is odd for a “high end” type place, it was hotttt in there, and the bathroom had comic book art in frames. It was just all over the place. No real cohesion. We were super bummed because we’d been wanting to try this place since...

I was with friends, 5 of us total and all separate checks. One of my friends pointed out that they included gratuity on our bills even though on their menu it says groups of 6+ subject to gratuity. Patio was nice, cocktail was good, food was okay. All in all not enough for me to return especially with the gratuity situation, I would have tipped on my own regardless but to have the menu state one thing and that not be the case feels shady.

EDIT As seen below I was offered a $100 gift card but when I emailed my receipt I was told to physically come into the restaurant to receive it as it seems we can’t mail or email gift cards from this establishment. I was also met with more excuses in the email exchange which is just frustrating on top of being told that there was “no gain” from the server doing this. There absolutely is something to gain and that’s being tipped twice if people aren’t paying attention to their bill after they’ve been drinking and being wrongfully charged a gratuity. At the end of the day instead of receiving a $100 gift card I got refunded a $7 gratuity charge. I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone.

SECOND EDIT I’ll add the third email since Jason decided not to.

FioRito 5/22/23 1:53pm: I am sorry we have lost you as a patron, The intention of saying that we agree 6+ is the policy and we would have fixed the problem immediately if we had known about it was not to put blame on you for our server's mistake. I am sorry if that is how it came across. Furthermore, no one is doubting your desire to tip, but (especially as someone in the industry) I am sorry you feel that P's intention was to be shady. There is no gain and clearly a lot to lose.

You are right about me overlooking the food being on the receipt as I was focused on the gratuity issue. Though I did think you may have tried more than one thing or had some insight on what you didn't like. I am certainly not asking for that now as I have already wasted enough of your time.

I do not have the ability to email you a gift card and did not think to mail you something that can only be used on site. I have refunded you the $7.40 and will cover it for the staff. If anyone else in you party feels similarly duped they can email me a copy of their receipt like you did and I will refund the...

So, I really wanted to love this place, my favorite food is Italian and I was excited to try this new spin in Wichita, and intrigued on what was done with the space. That being said, I’ll be very honest, in hope that I won’t get passive aggressive backhanded “apologies” like past reviewers have received..

Straight away, the parking situation was a huge bonus, as parking in the area can be difficult at best on a Saturday night. We didn’t choose to sit outside but the patio appeared airy and comfortable. The design of the restaurant interior gives a very trendy yet welcoming atmosphere. However, I found that the acoustics seemed to make the restaurant much louder than it should have been. We were having a hard time hearing ourselves talk over other guests conversations at normal levels nearby. It was odd and slightly annoying but not worth not returning over.

We ordered the garlic bread with red sauce which was pricey for what it was, but it was tasty. We also ordered the shareable seasonal fish entree that came with mushrooms and prosciutto and crispy angel hair. The mushroom and prosciutto side was very rich and delicious. The angel hair was a good concept, and had great flavor, but was very difficult to actually eat due to being one solid piece of crispy pasta. The salmon tasted very fresh, and high quality, but it was incredibly bland, like the cooks literally forgot to season it at all. Once we topped it with the mushroom sauce though, the flavors seemed to work very well together. For a shareable entree at that price, the portions really need to be a bit bigger. I do not enjoy overeating, but my fiancé and I both left feeling somewhat hungry still.

Overall, I feel that with some tweaks and adjustments to portion/price ratios, I would be willing to give Fiorito’s another try in the future, maybe sitting in another area of the restaurant or patio. PS - the dining room chairs were actually quite...