Rory’s Ristorante – A Unique Experience

You may remember that I visited Luminary Distilling for a Bloody Mary Sunday Funday back in December. Rory's Ristorante provides the Bloody Mary toppings as well as brunch type food such as frittatas, nachos, French toast casserole, to name a few. While sipping my spicy Bloody Mary, I had a bite or two of the frittata and it was quite tasty. Others at the Sunday Funday event were talking about what they got and liked the flavor. A smart move on Rory's part...there were menus sitting around so I picked one up and looked at the offerings. They had filet mignon to gnocchi and meatballs, all were described deliciously, I could just picture them in my mind. So the decision was made to try it out.

My birthday arrived and my friend of 30+ years decided to take me out to dinner, sans kids. Woohoo! Long gone are the days of partying until the wee hours of the night. Now it’s all about getting together over great food, a good beverage and being able to talk to each other without screaming at the top of our lungs. We knew the restaurant was in the “Little Italy” section of town at the La Nuova Aurora Club. When you approach the building, it looks more like an older club / office building, but the entrance is well marked, no guessing where to go.

I walked into a large room with a bunch of tables with people sitting at them. They just kinda looked at me as the waitresses and waiters hurried around. I looked for a hostess stand and when I realized there was none, I wandered through a swinging door into the bar area. I asked the bartender where to check in for dinner reservations. His response, “Just grab one of the waitresses.” I wandered back to the large room where again, the customers just kinda looked at me. I stood there for a few minutes waiting for my friend to arrive. No one came over and asked if I needed anything, it was all kind of odd.

My friend arrived and I explained we had to "grab a waitress" to get a seat. She looked at me quizzically since she had called and made reservations. We just shrugged our shoulders and off we went to “grab a waitress.” The closest one was at a customer’s table, so after standing back patiently with no acknowledgement, we interrupted. I apologized to the customers and explained to the waitress we had reservations and asked to be seated. She looked at us like we had two heads and said, “Reservations? Uh, ok, uhm…you can sit there.” And points us to a table near another swinging door to the bar. We walk ourselves to the table and get settled, chit chatting and catching up. After a few minutes when no one approached us with menus or offered to take our drink orders, we flagged a waitress down who had some serious RBF going on. We asked for menus and asked her if she could take our drink orders. She turned, went and got menus, brought them back with a basket of bread and took our drink requests. We realized very quickly we had no silverware, napkins or plates and weren’t quite sure how we could butter our bread. We contemplated using our fingers, but since we hadn’t even had our first drink yet, we ruled that out. The waitress returned with our drinks and ran off too quickly before we could ask for plates and silverware. Lucky for us they were stashed on a shelf, so we got our own.

The menu looked just as good as I had remembered. I couldn’t decide between the Filet Mignon or the Rack of Lamb. After looking around to see what others had, I ultimately went with the Rack of Lamb and my friend chose the Cioppino. Luckily, we were in no hurry and continued to chit chat and talk about the surroundings. Tables were well placed (you weren't crowding your neighbor) and most had plates and silverware already on them (huh, weird). People were having a good time, smiling and eating. It was easy to hear one another. Decorations and style were basic, and everything appeared to be clean. There was a faint smell of cigarettes from time to time since we were sitting by the door to the bar. It appeared to be your regular ma & pa shop. It did however take a while for the waitress to return for our orders. I started to say rack…and she interrupted me, hollered to one of her co-workers asking if there was any lamb left which they replied no. Ok onto my second choice, the filet. We both chose Caesar salads for our sides and they came out fairly quickly and were a nice sized portion. The dressing was tasty and I’m a fan of fresh shaved parmesan, can't go wrong there. As we were eating our salads, not even half-way through, our meals came out. Usually the wait staff let the chef know when to cook the food and time the delivery of the main course as you’re close to done or all the way done with your salad. Keep in mind we’re sitting at a two-top with a bread plate, bread basket, salad plate, silverware, drinks, decorations and a dinner plate. It was a little crowded.

After the waitress placed the dinner plates on the table, she ran off. Not quite sure why she would always run off, my friend and I are smiling and friendly, not like we’re sitting there scowling and scaring little kids. We began to eat. My steak was cooked correctly, medium rare. It was fried versus grilled, so if you care about that, this isn’t the steak for you. The broccoli appeared to be roasted in some kind of oil. It has a nice flavor. The mushroom risotto actually had a mushroom flavor which was tasty, it was just a tad salty. Overall the meal was ok. My friend had the Cioppino with linguine. I tasted a bit of the broth and it was good. She said everything was done fine, but again it was also a bit salty and not because it was sea food. She gave it an ok rating. The waitress popped by once to see if everything was ok and then at the end of the meal. If you're looking for the server to be by frequently, this is not your place. I could understand if she was the only one on the floor or it was packed, but it wasn't. We asked to see the dessert menu, it was after all my birthday celebration. No dessert menu and just a couple options, neither of which was chocolate and unfortunately neither appealed to either of us. We just asked for the check.

The bill was reasonable, the entrees ranged from $14 - $25 and the bar bill was cheap. God love Erie. Our gasoline may not be cheap, but our alcohol is. When the waitress came back to collect our payment we chatted with her for a bit and finally got her to smile. Found out that the owner rents the restaurant and that there never is a hostess. I asked about advertising which she replied there was no need to they were plenty busy. She rang us out at the table and promptly left her tip from another table on ours. I quickly walked it back over to her, she didn’t even realize she had left it there. I’m not sure if she was just getting over a stressful night or she was just flighty. We packed up and headed out, just puzzled by the whole experience.

I chatted with my friend the next day and we were both like, what the heck happened last night? We both went there expecting a more formal dining experience based on the menu and the prices, but it was closer to dinner at your local Italian pasta shop that have little Italian grandmas working in the kitchen where you can hear them yell and imagine their hands waving around. By the way LOVE pasta shops like that, yum! I can’t say the food was bad, it was ok. The service was a little iffy, but what really struck me as odd was there was no front-of-the-house at all, no hostess to great and seat you, no wine lists, it was just ultra casual and I’m still not quite sure what to think about it. Would I recommend you go there? I don’t know. If you do be prepared for a casual dining experience at fancy dining prices, except for the alcohol, those prices just rocked.