Look! A Real Restaurant in Florence!
So we ate lunch and dinner at Side Street Cafe last week. Side Street is the new restaurant on Maple Street, a few blocks south of Main Street, in the same little set of shops as the pet grooming place. (We didn't plan to do both meals there, but it just worked out that way, as Ella asked to have her birthday dinner there.) The restaurant is owned by chef Pat Shannon, formerly of Del Raye and (briefly, I think) the Tavern on the Hill.
Lunch is counter service with high-end deli sandwich (panini with grilled chicken, fresh mozz, sunflower seed pesto, and greens). It was very good -- interesting enough to be, well, interesting, but not obnoxious or hipper-than-thou.
For dinner we had filet mignon (me, came with some basic veggies and good sweet potato and regular potato fries) and salmon (Dena, came with terrific risotto and asparagus), with fried oyster appetizer w/ spicy dipping stuff (yum) and a burger for Ella (looked good, didn't try it). My steak was very good, though not quite as pink as I'd want for medium rare. Dena's salmon was lovely.
It's BYOB for now, I don't think with a corking charge. Their beer & wine license will come soon. Our full dinner was $70 with tip. Not bad, given the non-tap-water drinks (Dena accidentally ordered a $3.50 bottled water, Ella had soda, Liam had milk) and appetizer. Solid service, though I wouldn't say it was super fast. If we'd been sans kids, the pace would have been perfect. As it was, I found myself impatient from time to time.
It was full at 6:00 on a Thursday night. They only have seating for 24, granted, but still, for the third day open with minimal publicity, that seems pretty good.
And thus did Florence become perfect: A high-quality but still basically casual sit-down restaurant that doesn't serve pizza. Hooray!
Lunch is counter service with high-end deli sandwich (panini with grilled chicken, fresh mozz, sunflower seed pesto, and greens). It was very good -- interesting enough to be, well, interesting, but not obnoxious or hipper-than-thou.
For dinner we had filet mignon (me, came with some basic veggies and good sweet potato and regular potato fries) and salmon (Dena, came with terrific risotto and asparagus), with fried oyster appetizer w/ spicy dipping stuff (yum) and a burger for Ella (looked good, didn't try it). My steak was very good, though not quite as pink as I'd want for medium rare. Dena's salmon was lovely.
It's BYOB for now, I don't think with a corking charge. Their beer & wine license will come soon. Our full dinner was $70 with tip. Not bad, given the non-tap-water drinks (Dena accidentally ordered a $3.50 bottled water, Ella had soda, Liam had milk) and appetizer. Solid service, though I wouldn't say it was super fast. If we'd been sans kids, the pace would have been perfect. As it was, I found myself impatient from time to time.
It was full at 6:00 on a Thursday night. They only have seating for 24, granted, but still, for the third day open with minimal publicity, that seems pretty good.
And thus did Florence become perfect: A high-quality but still basically casual sit-down restaurant that doesn't serve pizza. Hooray!
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