Fiore's Ristorante
 Akron, Ohio (Fairlawn)     Date of Visit  08/10/13     http://fioresristorante.com/

Not too long ago we were treated to breakfast at Fiore’s and while they struggled to get the food out the sausage was good enough to guarantee a perusal of the later day offerings and we were soon back. Our server (dude this time) was just as nice and energetic as our breakfast attendant, he was also as sold on the new place. Suspiciously, he mentioned a number of times they do things beside Italian, meats, fish…everything. Maybe we should have heeded.
 

Bread & Balsamic Sadly Ruled The Day
 

We sat outside again and with the nice weather it’s the thing to do. We ordered all Italian fare…it is called Fiore’s Ristorante after all. Wedding soup, gnocchi chicken parmesan, chicken marsala and homemade lasagna.

Bread and a dish of olive oil with the name of the restaurant scrawled in balsamic beneath the oil arrived. The bread was warm and soft but lacked yeastiness and a bit of crust. The oil was run of the press but the vinegar seemed to be a thick reduction which packed a one-two of sweet and tang which elevated the offering.

The wedding soup wasn’t wedding soup. It was delicious chicken noodle soup with some meatballs but lacked greens and was missing the sharp saltiness of some parmesan. Good soup, but not quite what’s advertised. It turned out to be the best thing we had by far. Things decompensated in surprising and disappointing ways from that point on.

 

We did get two salads with the marsala and gnocchi, they were fine, fresh , cold, topped with super-seasoned croutons and served with one dressing which wasn’t what was ordered and another which tasted of nothing. The dressing of void was purportedly their house made bleu cheese which not only didn’t have the flavor of the cheese but would have been hard pressed to pass for ranch, essentially pouring a little milk over the leaves would have accomplished the same thing the dressing did. The sad thing is we continued down the spiral.

The marsala was a fairly well cooked chicken breast which failed to hang onto its breading, served atop functionally cooked linguini and served with a marsala cream sauce. The last place in this building closed and the strangest dish I had was their marsala which was freakishly sweet, this one was freakishly nothing. So much cream was poured into a typically subtle sauce that it reminded more of the bleu cheese dressing than a marsala. There is significant evidence of garlic in the dish (numerous tiny cubes) but not even the garlic could chop its way through the rich but tasteless cream. Add in, at best, three slices of mushroom and there’s nothing marsala about this mess.  It got worse from there.
 

The gnocchi chicken parm was topped with roma tomato slices and cheese, while the gnocchi was swathed in a thick vodka-cream sauce. The chicken was also done fairly well with a tastier breading than the marsala which also managed to cling to the chicken a little better. The remainder of the dish was surprisingly worse than the marsala. Sauce thick in texture, studded with evidence of more garlic somehow managed to taste like less that the cream assassinated marsala sauce. The linguini in the first dish was alright, the gnocchi were terrible. It is a feat of physics or trick of magic they held any shape at all. Instead of a light fluffy nugget of tater, these were dense, soggy, and completely without texture of any measure. No texture, no taste, no thanks!
 

The lunch portion of lasagna sat in the middle of the plate, holding the last remaining chance of something worthwhile. It only got worse. The sauce atop the lasagna offers possible explanation for the lack of flavor in the other two sauces…if they tasted like this to start with I would obliterate them away too. At best this stuff tastes like a #10 can of raw pizza sauce loaded with handfuls of basil. I couldn’t decide if I hated the basil or the sauce more. So sharp and acidic no amount of pasta, meat or cheese could ever counteract and still fit on the table. Oh, and cheese, the stuff that might help to some degree…there isn’t a speck of it in the lasagna and the little bit melted on top isn’t going to do what some ricotta might attempt. Easily one of the worst lasagnas I have ever tried. That includes one filled with pepperoni and cottage cheese BTW.

Maybe we should have listened to our server and ordered something besides the Italian fare…but come one…the sign reads Fiore’s! Maybe the steaks and seafood are great, I would be hard pressed to return to try them. If it’s true at least rename the place Frank’s Steakhouse or Fred’s House of Fish or something that doesn’t naturally steer your toward embarrassing “Italian” plates. We were offered BOGO breakfast cards which we will likely use. I don’t know if the sausage will ever be food enough to bring us back later in the day again.