A Tavola Restaurant — Restaurant in Winchester

Went out to dinner tonight with some friends who recommended the place and said that they've gone several times and they enjoy the food. As we have never been here before we asked our friends for what they like to get when they visited the restaurant. They said the menu rotated so they never really have the same items on their menu. I get that some restaurants do it so it's totally normal.

Before we get on to the food, one of the servers came up and asked us if we'd like some water; they offered still, tap, and sparkling. We first chose Still not really thinking anything of it, the server came over with a bottle of water and poured it we didn't say anything look totally fine, it wasn't until the end of the meal we were actually charged $6 for the bottle of water!! Okay next time I will definitely go with tap.

We ordered some beverages, two Palomas, one beer and one lime Ricky. Drink prices weren't bad at all I mean $10 for a can of beer is not crazy but alcoholic beverages between $12 and $18 are in the norm these days.

There were about eight different appetizers, we ordered two of them, we got the Roasted Eggplant (wasn't too bad I think it was a little spicy from the sauce, I did like the goat cheese that was mixed in with the lettuce leaves) and the Smoky Mozzarella Sticks (I thought these were pretty good, I'm not a big fan of anything that's smokey especially drinks, but I actually liked the smokiness of the mozzarella sticks. One of our friends wasn't crazy about it but he's a picky guy anyway).

As for our meals, one of us got the cheeseburger And he thought it was okay nothing special but the cheeseburger, he also said that the fries were a bit soggy not really on the crunchy side. I'm somebody that generally eats french fries no matter how they taste and I was picking them off his plate and dipping them in the sauce of my tortell (more on that to come). Another one of our friends got the Bucatini, a spaghetti type dish with mushrooms and mozzarella. She said it was cooked over al dente, didn't really know that was much of a thing I didn't try any of the pasta but it still looked really good. Don't get me wrong the presentation of everything was amazing! Now on to the final dishes, my fiance and I both ordered the tortellini and was surprised at how amazingly delicious the cheesiness of the tortellini was. We weren't too crazy about how they put arugula on top of it it was just a mix of flavors with the cheese that I wasn't too crazy about. Also the sauce at first I thought was delicious and then when I found out it was some kind of variation of pea soup and some kind of sauce I was a little taken aback by it.

I would have much preferred it to be in either a red sauce with some sprinkled Parmesan cheese on top of it even though there was Parmesan cheese in the middle of the tortellini, or even in a creamy Alfredo sauce, mmmmn that would have been PERFECT!

Now we get to the bill... Between the four of us, with a Lime Ricky, 3 alcoholic drinks, 2 appetizers, 4 entrees, that $6 bottle of still water and a soda, which also included, yes INCLUDED an $8 "Kitchen Team Fee (4%)" [what in tarnation?!] I don't even know what that was don't even ask me. The final total came out to around $220 (ballpark). I mean if you ask me it's Italian food, none of it was seafood that we ordered, I get it they're going to charge more because of the type of food what it is So the average price of all of our dishes was around $27, but overall I was a bit surprised by the end result of the bill. The service was great don't get me wrong, Isabel I believe was her name she was great awesome server great customer service. All the food came out pretty quickly which was great it was hot I was happy with that. But we tried The restaurant we're not really in Winchester that too often but we were in the market to try something new.

Thank you for coming to...

This place is mostly overpriced for what you get, but there are a select few things that are actuallly worth the price of admission.

We got quite a few things here:

The duck prosciutto appetizer The panko eggplant tower The rabbit pasta dish 3 temporary-menu Chef's special pasta dishes (I only ordered 2, but they brought an incorrect one, so I got 1 for free) The olive oil cake dessert

Duck prosciutto - total ripoff. It tastes pretty good, but the laughably tiny amount of meat you get is insulting for the price.

Panko Eggplant Tower - it's literally 3 slices of eggplant, lightly breaded, with tomato sauce and a very small portion of goat cheese. Not worth $12

Rabbit Pasta dish - this was a very pleasant surprise. It actually doesn't look very good when it comes out - looks like just a bunch of stuff thrown together. But it all combines together as quite delicious, and the rabbit meat was great.

3 various Chef's special pasta dishes (not on permanent menu) - all three chef's special pasta dishes that we ordered were overpriced, small portioned, and not interesting in taste. All disappointing.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Cake - This is one of the best desserts I've had all year. I didn't know what to expect in terms of how it would taste, but it's a two in one dessert really - they give you the olive oil cake, but also a scoop of equally delicious sour cherry frozen yogurt as a complementary side. There's also some potent pistachio cream garnish on the plate as well, and that's very heavily pistachio flavored - not watered down at all. Great dessert to close out the meal.

All in all, only 2 out 7 dishes I felt were "worth it" - the rabbit pasta and the olive oil cake. If you do choose to go here, you must try the Olive Oil Cake. ...

When it's this hot out, all I want are 'summer light' bites

Luckily A Tavola in Winchester fits the bill! What I love is that everything was so fresh and the menu is everchanging; the night I dined there, Chef Joe spoke highly of the fisherman he got the branzino from and the farmers market he got some of the produce used in that night's dishes from.

Some of the dishes I was able to taste (& my phone ate first) were: Beet Salad - horseradish crema, cucumbers, whole grain vin Branzino - blistered shishitos, shaved artichoke salsa verde Halibut - olive oil poached herloom tomatoes, basil, oregano & garlic Strawberry Shortcake - vanilla white cake, fresh and macerated strawberries, cream cheese whip Blueberry Ricotta Cake - ricotta, blueberry glaze

All of these dishes were complimented by my two craft beers - Bent Water Brewing's Premium Lager on Draft and Lone Pine Brewing's Summer Lights Citrus Wheat Ale. A Tavola, like their food menu, has a rotating beer & cider menu featuring new brews from New England craft breweries and cideries.

Incredible food in a warm, intimate space featuring an open kitchen, newly opened expansion and a patio space to take advantage of this beautiful weather!

A neighborhood restaurant that is truly invested in the community through collaborations, giving back and even partnering with the local elementary school to run a Seed to plate program to educate children about how to harvest ta garden and turn it's bounty into food for the table - a true seed to plate full circle! They also offer cooking classes, wine dinners, BBQ & Bourbon Dinners so keep an eye on their Instagram and website for...