Fiamo Italian Kitchen

Address:  515 Yates St.
Phone: (250) 388-5824
Website: http://www.fiamo.ca/
Price: $10-24 (most under $20)
Notes: Fancy atmosphere, funky take on Italian food. Prosecco on tap!





Fiamo is one of those places that has taken a long time to grow on me! My first experience was when they first opened in 2009 (ish? trying to do the math but math and I are not friends) - a friend from out of town had her birthday party there. For reasons I cannot quite recall, we had pre-eaten so I only remember having the caprese salad with roasted beets and not being super impressed (why mess with a good thing and switch the tomatoes for beets?).

We visited on our anniversary, as we were downtown much earlier than our reservation across the street at Ferris's and needed to kill some time. I had heard the rumours about prosecco on tap and we decided to check things out. We had a good chat with the bartender and were quite impressed with the weird system they needed to make the 'on tap' of a sparkling white wine work. At the time, they were one of only two places in North America that had it on tap although I see that this has changed as Veneto was advertising they have it as well now.

I do love the decor in here - lots of exposed brick (always makes me weak at the knees) and I love that when they broke through the brick wall on the main floor, they left the passage way ragged instead of finishing it up all pretty and then drew your eye to it by putting a Giant, glittery chandelier on the other side.


Service:
August 1, 2011
Our server was very professional! She let us take our time deciding and was very formal in the face of our funny little group. I super appreciated that she didn't blink twice and was very prompt when I requested a new water glass (something was floaty in it... it happens, no big). Came back several times to refill our glasses for both wine and booze. Good times!

Also appreciate that they were open on a holiday Monday! We had first tried to go to Clives, and then sat on the edge of the Chateau's fountain for quite a while calling around to various places on my 'to review' list trying to find somewhere that would have good drinks to while the afternoon away.


Food:
August 1, 2011
We were out for a walk with my mother-in-law on practically the most perfect day of the whole year so far. She determined that our next stop needed to be for drinks of some sort, as we had some planning to do of a trip we're planning to take next year. After much questing as I described above, we arrived at Fiamos and tucked ourselves away on the patio.

Antipasto Platter via foodspotting.com

I was pretty impressed with everything you see here! Lots of tasty cheese options, sun-dried olives, some relishy-onions, toasted nuts, cured meats, perfectly-ripe gooseberries and some wicked hot mustard all hit the spot quite nicely. The bread and the oil/vinegar were somewhat less impressive. The vinegar in the oil could have been a bit more sharp for my taste - but I do like things that are vinegary so perhaps they're trying to be more balanced. The bread, however, was supremely disappointing! I'm a bit puzzled... I almost wonder if maybe because of the holiday they substituted something different because I was expecting a dense, homemade, crusty bread. We were served the equivalent of wonderbread - soft and fluffy and virtually tasteless and textureless. A weird detail to miss in an Italian restaurant for sure. 

Prosecco via foodspotting.com

This was the raison d'être for our visit [side pun that probably doesn't translate properly: this is practically a raison d'été. Sorry. My family is British. I cannot help it.]!

A litre of prosecco is only $36! Totally worth it. Such a great deal - that's like the Starting price for a good bottle (so not even a litre) of wine, really. For the record, half a litre is only $20 but my mother-in-law determined that this was Not Enough for three people and since she was paying who was I to argue?

I do like prosecco - it's a great balance of sweet & tart. The little bubbles let you pretend like you're drinking fancy champagne. It was a pretty great choice for such a beautiful afternoon on their patio! I'm not totally sure why they had the napkin wrapped around the top of the er... (decanter is the wrong word but I can't think of the right one) thingy.