From the folks at Luma on Park, Prato is an Italian concept that features a wood-burning pizza oven and pizzaiola station in the dining room. Pizzas are good, though the thin crusts tend to char easily if not watched closely. Pasta is made fresh in-house, and most pasta dishes are available in half portions, a dandy idea.
Prato’s decor is rustic and casual. This is currently the hottest restaurant in town, and can be quite crowded. Expect waits, even for bar seating.

Primrose Lanes is the culmination of a multiyear project by Team Market Group (Mathers Social Gathering, The Wellborn) to renovate the former Colonial Lanes, a conventional mid-century bowling facility, into a hip and happening latter-day entertainment and dining facility. 

It certainly looks like an authentic British pub, albeit one that is about five times the average size. The British fare is fine — shepherd’s pie had some nontraditional cheese on top, but otherwise pretty good. Guests can tap their own beers from a wall of select brews using a prepaid card that meters the flow. (Gimmick)

Good pizzas have been coming out of the oven at this address for years, but only recently as Ragazzi’s. The crust — so important to a proper pizza — was just thick enough to hold the weight of the toppings, which were considerable. Besides pizza, Ragazzi’s does some pretty delicious Italian specialties, as well. I loved the meatball appetizer, which really could have served as an entree all on its own. Not only were the meat orbs well formed and firm, they also were simmered in a red sauce that was thick and tomatoey and worth spooning on its own. also had the eggplant parmigiana, a nicely done slice of eggplant dipped in egg wash and dusted with flour, fried to a golden crisp and then topped with melted mozzarella. Even better: it included a side dish of pasta with more of that wonderful marinara.

You’ll find traditional music, familiar ales and even genuine fittings from old bars in Ireland, but the food is an updated version of Irish classics, some a bit highfalutin.

For example, we started our dinner with a seared scallop on a mint and pea puree. Just saying the words mint and pea puree will get you thrown out of most pubs in Dublin. But it was tasty, as was the potato and asparagus soup, lighter and smoother than you’d expect.

The next course was shepherd’s pie, but as I said before, things aren’t done in a traditional way at Raglan Road, and this was certainly the oddest shepherd’s pie I’ve seen. Here, the ground meat mixed with gravy was dolloped onto a large spoon with a little mashed potatoes piped on top. It was a little more than one should shove into one’s mouth all at once, but there wasn’t quite enough to reallly get a feel for the flavor.

Whatever you have for dinner be sure to have the bread pudding for dessert. And the house band, which performs nightly, will make you want to get up and dance without moving your arms.

From the owners of Osprey Tavern and Seito Sushi in Baldwin Park, this Citrus replacement makes ample use of the patio space, but the inside is just as nice. Stick with the basic Mexican offerings.

The menu does not read as French but there is classic Frenchness in its execution, as you might expect from executive chef Emmanuel Clement.

Santiago’s Bodega has opened in the space formerly occupied by Logan’s Bistro on Virginia Drive in Orlando. Actually the place takes more than the Logan’s space. It has incorporated the storefront next door and has produced a new brick porch/patio in front. For all its newness, Santiago’s has a well-worn look that makes it immediately likable and comfortable.

This is a tapas restaurant. Although Santiago’s is new in Orlando, this is a second location for a restaurant in Key West. So the concept isn’t new and neither is the menu. Still, the restaurant was struggling the night I visited as hordes of curious diners descended on the place and overwhelmed the staff.

Mistakes were made, most of them accountable to the vagaries of a new operation, new location and a staff unfamiliar and shell-shocked. Those things can be ironed out.

My main complaint was the cost. My check came to over $68 for five tapas and one glass of wine. (We had two other glasses of wine but the server said they were on the house because of some problems at the beginning of the meal; otherwise the check would have been over $90.) That isn’t a tremendous amount of money for a night out, but the cost-to-quality-to-quantity ratio is way out of whack.

Update: I stopped back in to revisit Santiago’s Bodega recently and had a much more enjoyable experience than when I first reviewed it shortly after it opened last summer. The staff all seemed more comfortable — and were certainly more welcoming and appreciative — and the size of the tapas were more agreeable, too. It still isn’t the cheapest meal in town, but the quality is certainly apparent.

New brewer in the burgeoning Milk District. The beers are the main draw, but the food is pretty good, too.

Smoke & Donuts, the barbecue and oil-boiled dough specialty that started out as a food truck, finally made the move to the brick and mortar store they had been planning for a couple of years. I don’t know what took so long – it certainly wasn’t waiting for the flooring to go in. The space, which was previously occupied by a gourmet popcorn shop, looks sort of like an excavation site.

But the focus is the food, the duality of basic barbecue and gourmet donuts.