Gio's Italian Kitchen

The Story

The Hoxha family left Albania in 2003 and opened this place on August 7, 2014. Brothers Klodjan and Renato run the kitchen, their sister Eri runs the front, and the parents are in the building most days. That is the entire org chart, and it is printed right on the menu, where one of the fettuccine dishes is listed as Renato's Favorite.

Calling it a small room undersells it, because Gio's is a handful of small rooms. A main dining room with white cloths and a black tufted banquette against a reclaimed plank wall. Another dining room past the host stand. A bar along an exposed brick wall with a deep backbar of wine and bourbon and golf on the television. A glass-front wine room by the entrance. Edison bulbs hanging low, framed European street scenes, silk sunflowers by the window that nobody is apologizing for.

Every seat was spoken for. We had a reservation and were seated right away, and I would not walk in on a Saturday night without one. Small rooms packed with people get loud, and this one does. That is the deal, and it is the better problem to have, because a beach town that empties out every fall does not keep a place like this full for eleven years by accident.

There is outdoor seating as well. After being outside all day in the August heat we never gave it a look and stayed in the air conditioning. I'll get a pic next time.

The Food

Seafood and steak entrees come with a choice of soup or salad, and the soup that night was a butternut bisque. It arrives tasting like something off a Thanksgiving table and then finishes one hundred percent squash, which is not a criticism. It is more honest about what it is than most restaurant soup.

We ordered three appetizers and found the best thing on the table by accident.

The escargot was pretty much average. It comes baked in a crock under a green herb butter with a browned cheese cap, and the snails themselves were not big. I can't knock escargot too much if it's not tough, so while not bad by any stretch, I'd probably try something else next time. The mussels were small, well, smaller than the PEI mussels we are used to, but tasty and not the least bit chewy, sitting in a white wine broth with whole garlic cloves dropped in and grilled bread on the rim. The meatballs were very good on their own, in red sauce under a spoonful of ricotta and a pile of shredded parmesan. I eat a lot of meatballs, so if I'm not picking one apart, it's a good one.

Then somebody dragged a piece of bread through the meatball sauce.

That is the move. Any bread on the table works, including the bread that comes with the escargot or the mussels, and the sauce is good enough that you will keep reaching for it while your entrees are still coming. I am not a tomato guy. I ate that sauce anyway. If Gio's ever puts a bowl of it and a basket of bread on the menu as its own item, order it.

I ordered the scallops provencial on a local recommendation. We were in town for a junior golf tournament, and the grandmother of the girl in my daughter's pairing told me what to get. She was right. I am a scallop snob, and these were fantastic. Five of them, a light crust on the outside, the same consistency all the way through, seasoned with something I could not place and did not want to. The menu lists sauteed onions, tomatoes, garlic and a lemon basil sauce over linguine, and the tomato is there, diced fresh and scattered through the pasta instead of cooked down into anything red. That is the whole difference, and it is the reason a guy who avoids tomato dishes finished this one and would order it again.

My wife had the lobster ravioli and absolutely loved it. Two large ravioli in a blush sauce, tomato cut with cream rather than a straight red. I stole a bite and found it leaned acidic, which is my palate talking and not a verdict on a dish she is still talking about.

My daughter had the fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp, and this is the one place the kitchen left something on the table. The Alfredo ran a little bland for my taste and wanted something with more pop to it. The shrimp had the opposite problem, in a good way. Four of them, tails on, grilled with real char, dusted with something reddish that also got scattered across the rim of the plate. Cooked exactly right, not chewy at all, carrying a seasoning neither of us could name. She guessed blackened. I do not think it was. Whatever it is, it was the most interesting thing on that plate, and some of it belonged in the sauce.

The Bottom Line

Worth the Drive, and understand what that means in our system. It is not a tier we hand out for a good meal. It is for places worth pointing the car at.

Gio's earns it on the seafood. The scallops are the dish, and I do not say that lightly about scallops. Add a lobster my wife is still talking about, mussels done in white wine, and a meatball sauce good enough to eat with nothing but bread. One pasta ran quiet. Everything else landed. The menu is big, and I could easily be a regular working through it. A lot of those dishes look spectacular on paper, and my guess is they nail nearly all of them.

The rooms being tight and loud is part of the deal, not a flaw in it. Book ahead, especially on a weekend. Get the sauce on the table early. Order the scallops.

Their website says, "Eat Fresh. Eat Well. Eat Local." Any restaurant can print that. This one puts it on the plate.