Canaletto Ristorante Veneto - Newport Beach

Sunday night Cayla’s parents invited us to Canaletto Ristorante Veneto, an Italian restaurant located in Fashion Island.  This was my first time at Canaletto, but after hearing a lot about it I was really looking forward to it.  This restaurant is what I would describe as a “nicer” or “fancy” Italian restaurant.  Sunday the restaurant was celebrating Carnevale, so many of the servers had their faces painted and they also had a pirate walking around, which was random, but fun.  That explains the photo above :)

To start we shared the Fried Calamari which were rings and tentacles lightly floured and fried and served with marinara sauce.  The calamari was ‘OK’.  I should have gone with my gut feeling when we ordered it.  In my experience whenever you order fried calamari in a “nicer” restaurant it is usually lightly fried.  I personally prefer mine fried more than that, so often times I will tell these types of restaurants to make it “extra crispy”.  Don’t get me wrong, the dish was fine, just not cooked to my personal liking. 

For dinner I went with the Tagliatelle alla Bolognese which was pasta ribbons in a meat sauce with aged parmesan cheese.  Cayla and her mom went with the same.  A simple dish, but VERY good.  I loved everything about this dish.  First, the noodles were cooked perfectly al dente.  I hate it when noodles are over cooked and mushy, so BRAVO Canaletto!  Second, the meat sauce.  The meat sauce can be described as more of a paste really that a sauce.  It has ground up meat and sausage in it and is THICK.  The rich tomato and meat flavors make it OUTSTANDING!  It was so good that once I finished all the noodles, I had to mop up the rest of the sauce with some bread!  Third, the aged parmesan.  It was shredded and on the thicker side, which I like.  I also thought that it was a good amount that came on it, not too much as to overpower the rest of the dish, and not too little as to not be able to taste it.  Cayla’s mom, Cayla, and I all thought this was an EXCELLENT dish, and I would highly recommend it.

Cayla’s dad had a risotto dish with sausage in it, but I can’t remember anything else about it other than that he liked it. 

For dessert the table shared Crespelle di Mele, which where Crepes filled with apples and grappa infused pastry cream served with vanilla gelato and caramel sauce.  I’m not much of a dessert person in general, but even I thought that this dish was very good.  The crepes were made thin and had “apple pie style” apples and cinnamon inside of them, almost making them like apple dumplings, but with a much lighter pastry.  The vanilla seemed like it was made in house, think and FULL of flavor.  Something about the combination of the flavors when the crepe, apple, vanilla gelato, and caramel sauce all made its way onto one spoonful at a time to make the perfect bite.  These flavors combined make one great dessert dish!

The four of us enjoyed dinner here very much and will be back to sample more of the dishes on the menu!

Has anyone been here before?  What did you think???