Date Night - Trattoria Aroma

Earlier tonight Becky and I went out to dinner to one of our favorite restaurants Trattoria Aroma on Bryant Street. Our reservation was for 6:30 but we arrived at the restaurant a little after 6 and planned to sit at the bar if our table wasn't ready but it was. We soon had a couple of glasses of wine sitting in front of us. I had an amazing super Tuscan red and Becky had a nice Pinot white. Both Italian wines of course.

We had a wonderful dinner which we were started eating by 6:30 with a great Insalata Griglia and a nice basket of a variety of breads with some tasty garlic butter. We followed that with a delicious Pappardelle Bolognesse with homemade pasta and then a fabulous Verde Pizza that was spectacular and probably the best thing we ate all night. We shared everything and we had a some pieces of the pizza to take home too. 

The restaurant was not very crowded when we entered but by 7 it was almost full. The bar area was especially hopping. When we left near 8 o'clock the bar was full of people enjoying that pizza.

This was our first time at this restaurant since going there for my birthday in 2019 with Sean and Ashley. At that time the owner had recently sold off his other two suburban restaurants to concentrate on the Bryant Street one. Back at that time we could see the difference in a very positive way. The food there was definitely better. The restaurant had been going slightly down over the past couple of years and the prices had been going up. Well, in 2019 that changed. The quality of the food was much better and the costs had gone down. Then the pandemic struck. The owner closed the restaurant for awhile and took advantage of the downtime to renovate the place and expand the outside patio. We had been looking forward to getting back there as the pandemic progressed but we just didn't go out very much over the past couple of years. Now we are trying to get back to our weekly going out to dinner routine.

We were originally planning to go to Lombardo's because we have a gift certificate but we couldn't get a reservation. It was booked up a week in advance. We were fortunate to get a table at Trattoria Aroma too. It was mostly booked up on the online reservation service. Sometimes I wonder about the online booking programs and their effectiveness. Are all the tables in the restaurant listed there or are some tables held back for phone call reservations and walk-ins. There have also been issues with staffing in some restaurants since the pandemic and some tables are just not in service on a particular night with staffing problems. We saw that recently at Cole's where we ended up sitting at the bar for dinner with Sean and Tony. 

On our way home from Trattoria Aroma tonight we drove up Elmwood Avenue and from what we could see in windows it looked like every restaurant on the street was crowded. Apparently a lot of people like going out to dinner at a nice restaurant on Thursday nights. We do and it's a lot less crazy than Friday and Saturday nights plus it works with our retirement "schedule".

Many years ago we loved going to this restaurant when it was Just Pasta back in the 1980's. It was one of our favorite restaurants back the too.