BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — By Morty Eatowitz, Food Critic: BocaNewsNow.com was invited to Brio’s test night for what is our first restaurant review. While we have experienced test nights before, and have often found them to be as painful as melting wax from a dripping Hanukkah candle, we found Brio to be a beacon of light in the often dark caverns of chain restaurants in Boca. In fact, if it had not been a test night, you may have left thinking that the kitchen was just extremely busy. Food preparation was a bit slow, but servers were attentive, apologetic, and ultimately delivered perfectly prepared entrees.
I enjoyed the Cesar Salad while one of my dining companions enjoyed the garden salad as another, aged 2, enjoyed the pizza dough that is used like play dough. In fact, he found the pizza dough to be just firm enough to insert the complimentary crayons into, yet soft enough to roll it into a ball and push it from one end of the table to another. He also appreciated the paper covered table, which makes crayon testing during dinner a much more palatable experience.
For a main course, I enjoyed the grilled salmon which was perfect. You could wrap it up, drive to the Town Center Mall, and unwrap it at Legal Seafood and likely wouldn’t know the difference. That is a compliment to Brio. It is likely difficult to produce high quality seafood in a chain environment, especially on a training night, but they did so with style. My first companion enjoyed the Risotto, also perfectly made.
My second companion enjoyed pasta with butter. He found it perfect for eating and occasionally throwing.
The point here is that Brio knows what it does and does it extraordinarily well. It is an upscale chain Italian restaurant that is extremely kid friendly but also stands on its own for date night. You don’t feel like you’re at the OG (Olive Garden), but you also don’t feel like you’ve walked into a mortuary. It’s a happy, nice restaurant that serves extremely good food.
On our Morty scale of 1 to 5, where more Morty’s are better, we give it a 4 for food but a 5 for family friendly atmosphere.
5050 Town Center Circle, Boca Raton.
Sunday – Thursday 11a to 10p, Friday and Saturday, 11a to 11p.
561-392-3777
BrioItalian.com
