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Editorial Review

Reviewed in April/May '07 issue of Ciao!

Everything about this gorgeous South Osborne restaurant screams upscale, from the handsome decor to the fresh, flavourful plates of classic Italian preparations. But two people would be hard-pressed to spend $80 for dinner, even with a good bottle of wine. The contemporary decor belies the homestyle comfort food that comes out of the kitchen.

A neighbourhood fixture for over two decades, Monticchio migrated to a new sun-dappled space in 2005, just down the street from its previous, more intimate digs. Ownership remains the same, with Mike and Bernie Difonte at the helm, and they have perfected their formula of fresh ingredients, large portions and lusty flavours.

The restaurant occupies three spacious rooms, each with its own warm character. The two front rooms each have full frame windows looking out on to South Osborne. From here, diners can watch as a steady flow of people from the neighbourhood streams through the door, looking to dine-in or take out.

Decorative touches are a designer’s mélange of modern (intricate light fixtures) and traditional (framed prints of the old country) accents.

The lengthy menu doesn’t stray too far from Italy’s greatest hits, nor would you want it to. Start with the classic antipasto platter. Savoury little bowls of olives, pickled eggplant and marinated vegetables are surrounded by chunks of provolone and thin slices of proscuitto, salami and capocollo. Four diners can easily share the small platter, because there is lots more to come. All dinners include a large bowl of house salad that maximizes the flavour of its ingredients—fresh and flavourful in their simplicity. A basket of warm, doughy bread twists accompanies the salad. Then an even bigger bowl arrives, full of pasta revelling in its saucy glories. Monticchio lets you freely substitute from a full-length pasta list featuring angel hair, gnocchi, fettucine, fettucine verdi, fusilli, linguine, penne, ravioli, rigatoni, spaghetti or tortellini.

Veal is a signature dish, not to be missed, and the choices are legion. The best options are lemon veal and veal scallopini. The sautéed veal is fork tender. Both the tart lemon cream sauce and savoury garlic white wine sauce offer ideal accompaniment.

This is one of those restaurants where reading the menu will not help you order, because the prices don’t really indicate portion size. Consider the pasta sambuca, at $14.95, with a large house salad. One would certainly not expect the huge bowl that arrives, brimming with shrimp, mussels and scallops. But that’s the formula with every dish...heaping quantities of soul-filling food. As they say in the old country... mangia!

Desserts are supplied by good outside bakers. Certainly they rate consideration if you somehow arrive at this stage with any room left at all. But that seems highly unlikely.

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