Baraonda

We took a group of 10 to Baronda, expecting a nice meal, as one of our group, a native Italian, considers it his favorite Italian restaurant in Atlanta. That may well in itself, speak sadly to the state of Italian restaurants in my hometown (4th generation).The service was OK, especially as they chose to sit our group in the bar, not the restaurant. The food was also, no more than OK. My wife's 'steamed' mussels were served cold. My NY strip steak was quite possibly as bad a piece of meat as I have ever been served, and was inedible. This restaurant will do fine due to its proximity to the Fox Theater, but rest assured I will resist any future efforts to put this on our list of places worth our time or money.

I absolutely love Italian food, and Baraonda never lets me down. The seasonal menu keeps things exciting and makes me try new dishes (I tend to order the same thing at my favorite restaurants). Their brick oven pizza is superb - very light and flavorful! I also love their pastasI highly recommend the bolognese. The atmosphere is very warm and the service is impeccable. I have gotten an Italian server several times, and he is quite charming and very knowledgeable about the food and wine. It tends to get really loud when the dining room is at full capacity, so I prefer to go Monday-Wednesday, or sit outside if the weather allows. This is a great spot to grab dinner before going to a show at the Fox. You need to try it out!!...

I love their brick oven pizza. I went there before a show at the fox last week, and it was incredible. Great service, the pizza was on our table before we knew it, and it was delicious. Try the proscuitto and aruluga pizza, it's the bomb!!

We ate here last night with before we went to a show at the fox, and my husband and I were VERY happy with the pizza. We haven't had pizza like this in a while, we got the proscuitto pizza with parm, and arugula, we both cleaned our plates before we left. It was very busy though and we had to wait a little before getting seated, but we both loved it and will be back again.

As like most nights my husband and I were meeting some friends for a night on the town. Occassion, to celebrate a friends birthday. We decided the main event would be Jazz @ Churchill Grounds and elected to eat here because it was in walking distance to the venue. I've driven past this place on numerous occassions and thought it appeared somewhat quaint so I was jazzed to have finally gotten an opportunity to eat here. My husband elected to order the featured dish (some pork dish w/roasted potatoes) and I ordered Veal Scallopini. For starters we were disenchanted with the fact that for such a restaurant we would have expected hot fresh baked Italian bread. What we actually received was an old precut Italian loaf that no one dared to eat. When the food did arrive the veal on my plate was cold but the mushrooms (not portabella, which was what the menu suggested) in marsala sauce were hot. Back to the kitchen it goes. In an attempt to keep from ruining the dining experience for the rest of the group I sat in silence waiting on a dish to return that at this point I had completely lost interest in. My husband then leans over and says he has chipped his tooth on something in his featured pork dish. .making a long story short. This was absolutely the worse dining experience of my life. The service was lousy, the food was mediocre and what should have been maybe a $80.00 dining experience will more than likely cost us close to $1000 as a result of the trip to the dentist. Man it's getting more and more expensive to eat in this town!!!...