Cave dining at Calistos

The lovely ladies I work with decided to do a holiday dinner and we booked it at Calistos. 

This is a College street Italian style eatery all designed to resemble a Roman cave in Italy with the same name- when you walk in - there is an intimate feel from the restaurants and the dim lighting and candles and owner Gianfranco La Ponte takes great pride in the hand textured domed cement ceilings and the cave-like decor.  Gianfranco's hospitality is infectious greeting us with a big friendly hug and always attentive service and then later on with a round of shots - he won us over with his charm.

The menu is traditional Italian fare with pasta and meat specials.   We tried a variety of appetizers and mains from the cabrese salad and antipasto which had a good selection of meats and percorino cheese :),  to the veal scallopini, putenesca pasta which is an tomato, olive and capers sauce and of course their gnocchi.  The calamari appetizer was delish exclaimed Sophia.  The texture and breading was a perfect blend and it wasn't over done like it usually is at Red Lobster. 
I had the gnoochi and it was hearty and creamy and it was a very heavy but very satisfying with it's richness.  I actually shared the portion with my co-worker Heather and was still stuffed and really can't imagine having the entire portion! They had a delicious risotto special that was full of walnuts and creamy sauce- it was delightful as well. 

The tiramisu is home made and the portions are huge as well and not always necessary when you've had a heavy Italian dinner. 

 

The more interesting thing is that there's a downstairs dance club equipped with a bar and turns into a place where the crowd can cut a rug on the weekends. 
This is a novel place to experience once or twice for the food but definitely would come back for drinks and a dancey dance.

*** stars
Calistos 647 College Street West (College and Grace)
(647) 351-7575

Hours:

Daily: 12:00pm - 2:00am
Dinner for 2 with wine- $135 with tip