Big Flavor in Little Italy

They say you should never stop dating your spouse. And all the “experts” recommend having at least one date a month to keep the relationship fiery and alive. I don’t know if any of that is true — but I can tell you that since we got married in November, this was our first night out on the town just the two of us. Clearly the “expert” who said go on a date every month hasn’t heard of the holidays, seasonal rushes, or life getting in the way.

Alas though, date night it was. And as it was indeed our first night out in awhile, we wanted to treat ourselves a little bit. Pragmatic as we are though, Christmas this year, we got a gift card. As fortune might have it, one of the options on the card was Maggianos!

Located in Pointe Orlando, off International Drive, Maggianos could be mistaken as just another tourist trap chain restaurant among many other $25-50 an entree restaurants located within a stone’s throw. But you’d be wrong. Maggianos is indeed a chain! But, being a scratch kitchen affords them a little more quality control — and upscale dining experience.

Entering the restaurant feels like a time capsule. Rich wooden trim is flanked by wallpaper and paintings. Muffled yellow hue lighting keeps the mood intimate and relaxed among your table. It’s the Gilded Age come restored! Bowler hats and button down suits not included. Pro tip, we highly recommend asking for the booth.

So… How’s the food! That’s what we all care about.

We started with the white sangria. Wow. It was crisp, and it had a wonderful orange citrus blast. It was a sweeter sangria - so, be warned. We hadn’t really looked at the drink menu prior to ordering outside of seeing they had Sangria and it felt better value wise to go with that over a cocktail. We both looked at each other and remarked how good of a sangria it was! Come to find out, they use Cointreau — which accounts for how pronounced the orange in it is.

The server brought fresh and warm bread to the table rather quickly and the olive oil and Parmesan was good quite. The olive oil had a wonderful and rich, golden hue. I did think the bread was a little hard and chewy, but the oil had such a wonderful flavor. I thought it much better than the usual oil you get at Italian restaurants.

Wifey had been eyeing their salads since she had looked at the menu so we compromised and got a salad instead of a delicious calamari fritte. To her credit, I did enjoy my Caesar salad. They dressing was very creamy and had a very traditional Caesar salad flavor. It wasn’t impeccable, but it was very good. She was less pleased with her chopped salad. It was well adorned though. Half an avocado laid across the top, thick cut minces of bacon, and the one thing we both remarked upon was how well cut their lettuce was. Every bite the lettuce wasn’t too big or too small. So your bites were even with toppings and crunch. Sadly, Jordan felt the dressing on her salad wasn’t strong enough to stand up to the other toppings. The flavor of the dressing it itself was good, but as a component in a combined dish didn’t tie the ingredients together; and, as such, failed in its purpose as a dressing.

The main courses though is where the dinner shined through. Both of us fell in love with our dishes immediately upon serving. My amazing wife ordered the Rigatoni “D”. A marsala cream sauce with caramelized onions and mushrooms. Yum! Just typing it again sounds good. There was also an herb-roasted chicken on top that was good. But, man, that marsala cream sauce with a bite of penne and a string of onion was deeeelish!

I love a seafood pasta. I get it all the time when we visit our favorite local spot Stefanos. There is just something about, mussels, clams and shrimp in a savory tomato broth that just makes me happy. Maybe it’s the broth matches the color of my beard; Maybe it’s the deep umami that comes with simmering that much tasty food together. Who knows. But I like it, for whatever the reason.
So, linguine di mare was the obvious choice. I tried to fight it - I consider the salmon and branzino, and i really looked at the mushroom ravioli. But, we were celebrating each other. So, I went with the dish that sings to my heart the most often.

The dish rested in front of me - a bounty of seafood. Stacked high with mussels and clams, chunks of lobster claw poking in between the shells. But among the noise, there was the true star. The tomato broth. It was rich, it was deep, it was allegedly spicy. It was a lot of really delicious things, but I wouldn’t have put “spicy” among the adjectives. The color was a beautiful reddish orange and was as flavorful as I had hoped.

Their dessert menu has all the usual fare you’d expect of an Italian restaurant. Tiramisu, cheesecake, and a chocolate cake. I was also happy to see a few alternatives as well including a butter cake with brown butter glaze, and an apple crostada. However, they were running a special on chocolate hazelnut cheesecake. And I have an unhealthy relationship with Nutella when it lines up in a specialty dessert at a place I’m actually choosing to get dessert at. I’m obligated to get it. So, we shared it. And WOW, I wanna see this guy’s 401(k), because he. was. rich. Whoa.

But the cheesecake set perfectly. It was fork tender, but dense. It’s texture was almost mousse like as it melted in your mouth. Just a very rich and decadent dessert. Sharing it together, and we still left a few bites because we couldn’t have another! Our waitress Madison was also great - and took the time to let the chef know to throw a congrats on there. Celebrating our first married date!

It was a great meal! Such a shame it took me so long to get back to Maggianos. It was a really good experience for both of us and we both agreed we’d be back. One final note, I had too many people talk about how a group meal is a much, much better experience. Too many to not at least mention it; it was that many. They do family style dining as well, and it’s their specialty. But they also had quite a few meeting rooms available for private use as well, and they were all full on the night we were there. Like I said, for a small Facebook post I put up the next morning, the amount of comments I got afterwards saying GO WITH A GROUP NEXT TIME was alarming. Particularly considering this review was already glowing! Check out their menu here