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On a sleepy summer weeknight, I did not expect the festive scene I encountered at Dal Contadino Trattoria in Fort Lauderdale. The bar was full, nearly every table was occupied, and music blared as a red-hatted chef belted out tunes in the dining room. Balloons hovered above tables and the bar. The restaurant was throwing a birthday party for itself, celebrating its first anniversary with regular customers, friends and family.
“Enjoy the food,” chef-owner Nuccio Giannino told the crowd after he finished a two-song set. “There are a lot more songs to come. But I have to get back in the kitchen and cook.”
Giannino’s crooning, usually limited to weekends, has become part of the charm at this cozy, 105-seat restaurant on East Oakland Park Boulevard, a space that once was occupied by the well-regarded Sunfish Grill. Italian joints are a dime a dozen in South Florida, so I suppose a singing chef can make one stand out in the crowd. Every half-hour, Giannino would pop out of the kitchen, grab the microphone and warble through Italian standards such as “Volare.”
“I used to sing with my friends in Italy,” Giannino says in a follow-up interview. “I prefer to focus on my food.”
Originally from Puglia, Giannino has lived in South Florida for 13 years. He and wife Kremena, who oversees the front of the house, ran the Il Paesano Italian Market down the block before opening Dal Contadino. A blackboard at the entrance reads, “We use only fresh products and all meals are cooked with great care and Italian passion.”
Some of Giannino’s food is very good, particularly tapas plates that show versatility, finesse and flavor. Ricotta-stuffed fried zucchini flowers with a subtle Gorgonzola sauce ($9) were delicate, and peaches wrapped with silky prosciutto accompanied by creamy housemade burrata ($14) were divine. But other dishes fell flat, including bland and chunky meat lasagna ($18).
“I hate to say this, but Stouffer’s tastes better,” one tablemate noted. In this case, I had to agree with my 11-year-old daughter.
I had heard good things about Dal Contadino, including from a colleague who was tickled by the floor show. When my group walked in and saw fate had brought us on a big night, we knew we might be in for a long and bumpy ride.
We decided to go with the flow, and braced for two possibilities: Either we would get swept up in a raucous good time, or things would go off the rails. It turned out to be a little of both. The vibe was convivial and loud, in a kitschy dining room decorated with bric-a-brac and featuring two silent televisions side by side. One showed images of Florence. The other showed an old Laurel and Hardy movie.
The food and service were maddeningly uneven, with a delicious round of appetizers followed by a derailment worthy of Amtrak. Service evaporated and mediocrity reigned in the main courses — grilled shrimp overcooked to mush; tough and salty veal scaloppini that wasn’t properly pounded — and what began as a promising night turned into an exercise in aggravation. At one point, our table was enveloped in an unappetizing stench from a seafood skillet at a nearby table — it smelled like a Venetian canal in August — and we wondered if a mussel or clam had taken a bad turn.
The meal was capped by an odd occurrence: Our wine’s price on the computer-generated check ($64) did not match the price on the wine list ($46). I really should have complained about the $18 overcharge for the bottle of 2013 Barbaresco Corte alla Flora, a 39 percent difference, but by that point I just wanted to leave. I suspected something was off when I got the bill, but I did not confirm the discrepancy until I looked at a wine list on the way out. We already had skipped dessert because the evening had turned into a two-hour slog. Instead of a sweet ending, we left on a sour note.
Giannino apologized for the mistake in an interview the following day, saying I visited on the restaurant’s busiest night since opening. He says 250 diners were served, and he enlisted two friends to help in the dining room. He says he almost closed the restaurant to the public but customers kept calling, saying they wanted to take part in the celebration. Regarding the wine mix-up, he says a temporary server pushed the wrong button on the register, ringing up a Barbaresco that is no longer available. He offered me a refund.
Some hiccups were understandable because of the packed house. We didn’t mind that it took a long time for Kremena to make her way to the front door to greet us when we arrived. We were thankful the restaurant had a table available without a reservation. The server who took our order, who seemed like a competent veteran, told us we had to order everything at once to accommodate the kitchen. I prefer ordering in waves, particularly at a restaurant featuring tapas, but it seemed a reasonable request given the circumstances. We were willing to forgive some backups and delays. Baskets of warm and crusty bread, served with olive oil but not butter, tided us over.
Other glitches, however, were simply inexcusable. The restaurant featured a team approach to service, yet oblivious servers continuously walked past our table as empty plates sat and sat. That is the biggest dining peeve of a member of my eating crew, and she nearly went into conniptions as she stacked empty appetizer plates and put them to the side. Those plates, with dirty utensils, were still on the table when the entrees arrived, and servers scrambled to clear them. We twice had to ask for new utensils for the main course.
Our entree plates also sat a long time after we were done — I clocked it at 15 minutes — even as servers cleared an empty table next to us and made small talk with customers around us. Our original server had disappeared, and at one point a tablemate got up, spun around and looked desperately to make eye contact with someone, anyone, to clear the mess. No takers. Finally, our server arrived. Seeing uneaten food, he asked if we wanted it wrapped to go. We declined.
The veal scaloppini Livornese ($29) was supposed to be topped with eggplant, mozzarella and prosciutto. We didn’t detect any prosciutto, yet the brown-sauced dish was still overly salty. The head-on grilled tiger shrimp ($26) lost all sweetness and texture from overcooking, but an accompanying mound of black-squid-ink spaghetti was tasty.
There were other bright spots. Grilled lamb chops ($26) were properly cooked to medium rare and featured simple and delicious rosemary roasted potatoes. Roasted artichokes with truffle and mushroom cream ($8) were lovely. Among specials, a tapas-size bowl of osso bucco ($9) with chunky and garlicky mashed potatoes was warm and comforting, although not quite seasonally appropriate. Still, it was nice to have a winter flashback in mid-July.
The menu features dozens of starters, pastas, mains and specials, including tripe, liver with onions and an impressive-looking tomahawk steak that was carved up tableside for a large group. I imagine regulars know their way around the offerings. On a more sedate night with better service, I might have left singing, “That’s amore.” But on this night, my feelings for Dal Contadino Trattoria were more “Funiculi, funicula.” That song is about a Mount Vesuvius cable car. This meal was definitely an up-and-down experience.
, 954-356-4508. Follow my food adventures on Instagram: @mikemayoeats. Sign up for my weekly dining newsletter at .
Dal Contadino Trattoria
2775 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fort Lauderdale
954-900-2714 or Contadino-Trattoria.com
Cuisine: Italian with wide-ranging selection of appetizers, pastas, meats and seafood
Cost: Moderate. Salads and appetizers $6 to $17, pastas $14 to $23, main courses $17 to $35, desserts $6
Hours: Dinner 4:30-10:30 p.m. daily
Reservations: Accepted
Credit cards: All major
Bar: Beer and wine only
Sound level: Noisy when crowded, especially when chef Nuccio takes the mike and starts singing
Wheelchair access: Ground level
Parking: Free and metered parking
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