Since opening in 2014, Giorgio’s in Oldtown Salinas has been a confounding place. Big, bold and beautiful – the show kitchen, glowing green-onyx bar, soaring ceilings and neoclassical columns – Giorgio’s had always put on an attractive appearance, yet there was a disconnect between style and substance.
The service was haphazard, the dining area wasn’t maintained well and the food was a shrug. The price tag to rehabilitate the long-empty Wells Fargo Bank building was estimated at $7 million; if the owners spent that much money to open, why wouldn’t they want to be better? I walked past almost daily, looked at the chaos in the open pasta prep area, shook my head and kept walking.
But over the past year, something changed. The open pasta prep area was moved and replaced with office space. The restaurant shut down for a number of days and a top-to-bottom cleaning took place, along with training for the service staff. The Giorgio’s social media team kicked into overdrive, posting many pictures of pretty plates, thirst-inducing cocktails and happy diners.
It was time to reconsider Giorgio’s. Based on two recent visits, I’m glad I did. The formerly fly-specked window sills are clean. The servers are friendly and attentive. The food was deftly cooked and plated and served with subtle urgency.
So make that multiple somethings. Giorgio’s has become very good.
My first visit took place on a Thursday night. The hostess quickly sat my companion and me, and the server appeared almost immediately with menus and a weighty book filled with Giorgio’s wine, beer and cocktail list. The spirits book features 11 draft beers and 11 bottled, 19 wines by the glass and dozens upon dozens of bottles, divided by type and region and featuring some great locals (including Bernardus, Pessagno and Morgan), as well as varietals from Spain, France and Germany. The cocktails include the one my companion ordered, the raspberry lemonade, a vodka-based drink with lemon, rosemary and muddled raspberries. I asked him how it was and he said, “Undrinkable,” which is what he always says when he doesn’t want to share. I snagged a sip anyway and it was great, bright with the lemon and rosemary.
Great, too, were the starters. From a dozen or so on offer, we went with the Frosted Flake-and-chili crusted asparagus, served with ancho chili and lemon aioli sauces, and the roasted Brussels sprouts, with pine nuts, bacon, dates, Gorgonzola, honey butter and balsamic glaze.
“Frosted Flakes and asparagus?” I thought. “That can’t possibly work.” But it did, with tender asparagus spears rolled in the spiced crumbs, fried and presented in a cone. The sweetness of the crust played off the bitterness of the asparagus, and the accompanying sauces were a great foil. The Brussels, meanwhile, had all of the ingredients combining to highlight the bright green sprouts. The sprouts were tender, but could have benefitted from more time in a hot oven to give them a little brown crispness.
For mains, my companion went with the prawns Silvestre, with wild prawns, asparagus tips, cherry tomatoes, candied bacon and housemade fettucine. I went with the Italian sausage pizetta with spring onion, roasted peppers and Calabrian chilies.
The prawns were just right. The pasta was also expertly cooked, as were the vegetables. But my companion found the sauce a little unbalanced, with the acidity competing against the bacon and prawns.
The pizetta, though, was perfect, and that’s not something a Chicago-born pizza snob says lightly. A whisper-thin crust, cooked in the open-kitchen pizza oven, was topped with spicy house sausage, bold tomato sauce and whoa, those chilies were great. I’d walk over to fetch one of these any night of the week.
A second visit with a different friend had us sharing a little bit of everything. We chose the charcuterie plate, the goat cheese salad, the tartufata gnocchi with porcini-dusted chicken and a pair of cocktails – the Pair of Pears for me, the cucumber press for her.
The charcuterie plate arrived laden with sliced meats, nuts, dried fruit, a wedge of gorgonzola and little dishes of cornichon, grainy mustard, pickled vegetables and olives. There was enough for six people on the slate tray, making it a great choice for a hungry group. The goat cheese salad, with fat disks of fried goat cheese topping a loft of fresh greens, dressed with a tangy, fruity raspberry vinaigrette, had my friend picking through the greens for more of the candied nuts. Molto bene. And the gnocchi brought us pudgy pillows of pasta, stuffed with cheese, with a rich sauce topped by grilled chicken. Those gnocchi were, like most everything else we tried, perfect.
I’ll have to go back, to try the nightly happy hour menu featuring things like the spring onion waffle tower or the prosciutto Parmesan truffle fries, and to delve into parts of the menu we didn’t try, like the main courses featuring sea bass and maple bourbon rib-eye. Or brunch, for the chicken and waffles and Mimosa bar.
I’ll have to go back. I never expected to say that. What a difference a year and some attention has made at Giorgio’s.
GIORGIO’S 201 Main St., Salinas • 4-9pm Mon-Thu, 4-11pm Fri-Sat, 10am-3pm Sun brunch; happy hour all day Monday, 4-6pm Tue-Sat. •800-7573, 201complex.com.