For my birthday dinner this year, I decided to cross another Altamarea Group restaurant off my list and try out Osteria Morini. I tried to make a reservation a week ahead of time but could only get 5:00pm options so we decided in walk in at 7pm. They quoted us an hour and a half wait time but we only ended up waiting about an hour.

We opted to start off with a cured meats and cheese plate. There are quite a few choices in each category and you get to mix and match between the two. We went with the 3 for $24 option with 24 month aged prosciutto, mortadella and La Tur cheese (goat, sheep and cow milk). Each plate comes with grilled bread and warm tigelles, which I absolutely loved. One of my favorite dishes of all time is the prosciutto and warm flatbread at Da Andrea and this was a bit like it. The cheese, which was super soft, was very mlld and I ended up eating most of it. We also split the Polpettine, or prosciutto and mortadella meatballs baked in tomato sauce ($14.00). The meatballs were very tender and not dry at all. They were good but I couldn’t quite tell the difference between these and regular meatballs – the prosciutto and mortadella didn’t really stand out. For my entree, I decided on their Cappelletti, which are tiny truffled ricotta raviolis in a melted butter sauce with prosciutto ($24.00). This was really good! The ricotta ravioli was very good and the melted butter sauce was creamy without being too heavy. I loved that each bite was like biting into a pillow! My sister had the Garganelli with cream radicchio, truffle butter and prosciutto ($23.00). I thought this was pretty good but definitely not as good as the garganelli that I had at Costata. The plate definitely looked pretty – very rustic! My mom had the Brodetto, an Adriatic style seafood soup with calamari, scallops, fish, shrimp, clams, and mussels ($29.00). I really liked her dish! The soup was very flavorful and tasted really good with bread. The scallops and fish were both very tender and melted in my mouth. The mussels were a pretty good size as well – and very fresh! I can see myself returning just for this dish alone. For dessert, my sister and mother split 3 scoops of gelato ($8.00). My sister picked strawberry, vanilla and chocolate-hazelnut. The chocolate-hazelnut was my favorite – it wasn’t too sweet and only had a hint of hazelnut. The cookie was also a nice touch – there were nuts in them, so people with nut allergies beware! I had an Affogato ($9.00) for myself. The freshly brewed espresso was poured in at the table, just the way it’s meant to be done. I really liked the gelato – just the perfect mixture of sweetness and bitterness! This also helped me fight the incoming food coma from all the good food! Service was attentive and our waiter was spot on with his wine recommendations. They were also really nice and moved us from the table closest to the door since it was pretty chilly whenever someone opened and closed the door. A+ service!