5 /5
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★
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As a fellow chef-owner (in France) with foreign origins, I was looking forward to the meal I'd share with my family the week leading up to our reservation. I read many of the other reviews here on T.A. and I perused the menu and photos...available here and on Little Italy's Facebook page and I tried not to allow myself to become overly excited with expectations. Being in the restaurant business leaves for little to no free time, especially for dining out in other restaurants, so when I go to eat in another food establishment, I am apprehensive of being disappointed, since my dining out experiences in France over the past years in this country have left much to be desired. Well, hours after savoring the fantastic meal in this cozy little restaurant, I am still in happy disbelief that we finally found a restaurant where the chef-owner is passionate, motivated, courageous and cares so much about what he does. This young man does EVERYTHING himself: the preparation, the cooking service, the dining room service, the cleanup, the to-go orders. Everything on the menu is homemade from raw ingredients including the pizza dough, bread and pasta dough. The dishes are simple yet interesting enough that you don't feel like you would make it yourself at home; the pizzas are rightly made with mozzarella cheese not emmenthaller; the desserts are also homemade; the beverage selection is limited yet carefully chosen and the wines pair well with the food; even the espresso was of a good quality and prepared with a machine that grinds the beans fresh...suffice it to say that no details are spared and with all the work involved to execute such a menu day-in day-out, lunch and dinner everyday, the chef-owner still maintains a calm, welcoming demeanor and sweats no stress onto his guests. To get to the bottom line, the food was amazing! We tasted two pizzas, a bruschetta, two different pasta dishes, the montepulciano, the Chianti, the tiramisu and we were so enchanted we ordered extra pasta to go and some of his perfect almond biscotti. What a pleasure to eat such a meal, and what a pleasure to patronize a business that practices reasonable pricing, I must underline. It is so appreciable to eat a great meal, receive a great service, dine out as a family and not feel like you've just indebted yourself for the next three months. This is unseen in France, so far in my dining out experiences. It seems as though everybody that opens a foodservice establishment serving homemade food believes that the price coefficient must be at least times the cost, minimum, which translates to good dining out experiences being limited to a certain class only, in terms of budget. It also makes for unjustified snobbery amongst foodservice professionals that don't know their place. This is not the case with Little Italy. It's no frills, simple, straightforward, focused on good food, cleanliness and good service without pretense. I LOVE IT!! Thank you so much for doing what you do, we cannot wait to come back.