Cutillo's Restaurant

(menu)

I've been to Cutillo's about a million times.  I actually lived in one of their weekly rental apartments for 6 long strange months in about 2008.  They have a fine dining/white tablecloth dining room that's 2 floors with a nice view of the creek and their landscaped gardens.  They also have a bar with more casual seating and they have outdoor seating which I haven't ever sat at.

Steve and I decided to go to Cutillo's one night.  We usually like to sit at the bar, but when I showed up the bar was very full and loud.  It looked like they were having a business mixer or something so we decided to sit in the dining room instead.

The dining room is still nice.  It's kind of traditional looking.  A great setting for a meal with your parents or grandparents, maybe a nice romantic evening when they have the harpist.  They had a fake flower in a vase on the table with light aimed at it.  Looks nice, but it was fake.

The beer list was not very extensive.  Really just the basics, one or two crafty type beers.  I ordered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Our dinners came with a choice of salad so I ordered the garden salad with blue cheese dressing and Steve got the Caesar Salad.

The salads came out with a small basket of warm rolls.  I try to avoid bread, but if it comes out uninvited, I'm not going to turn it away.  The butter was in those little, gold, paper wrappers.  The wrappers are terribly annoying.  Your hands get all buttery when you open them and they can rip when you try to get butter onto your knife.  Why not bring out a plate with some unwrapped butter?  The bread was very good, it had a little bit of a raw taste inside, but I didn't mind it.

The waitress offered fresh grated parmesan for our salads and Steve took her up on the offer.  The croutons on both salads were very light and airy.  They must have been made from a less dense bread. Not a big winner for either of us, but just a matter of opinion. The Caesar was pretty standard, not especially exciting and the garden salad was good with romaine lettuce, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes.  The blue cheese dressing was pretty good with lots of small pieces of cheese.

I ordered a special. It was a salmon dish.  The specials came with a complimentary dessert, creme brulee.  It was a nice feature for the price, but didn't influence my decision.  The way the dish was plated was a real turnoff.  Everything was sort of shifted to the right side.  It was like they forgot to put something on the left side or like the person plating paid zero attention.  I know plating does not effect the taste of the food, but it felt wrong, especially in a white tablecloth restaurant.  The salmon was cooked well with capers, tomatoes and artichoke hearts in a white wine sauce.  The potatoes and green beans were standard.

Steve ordered the broiled sea scallops.  The plating of his meal was similarly unappetizing.  The scallops were just kind of dropped on the plate.  There was nothing outstanding about the scallops either.  They weren't over or under cooked, but they didn't have a perfect sear on them or anything.  The white wine, lemon butter, lobster cream sauce was unimpressive. Tasted a little like a seafood bisque.  Not delicate, just one, flat seafood flavor.

Like I said, I'm not a big dessert eater, but the creme brulee was well torched, nice and crispy on top.  It was a little too sweet - even more than usual I think.  Nice presentation here though.

I was kind of disappointed with Cutillo's.  The service was good and the view is nice, but the food - the most important part - left some things to be desired.  I'm not going to rush back there for the next special occasion.