Review 3

08.24.07

Trio
Salt Lake City, Utah

When people from my tennis group rate a restaurant as “so good” I usually make a point of never eating there. The people from my tennis group are born and raised anti-foodies, enjoying items such as orange chicken, and believing that the Costco frozen dumpling is what the dumpling is supposed to taste like. So I was slightly apprehensive, to say the least, when they mentioned a new Italian restaurant called Trio.
As we arrived, I glanced out the window of our car to see a classy garden with diners seated both outdoors and in. We walked through the door to see a kind of elongated podium, with waiters and waitresses in sheik black outfits darting back and forth from tables. We waited about ten minutes to be seated at our outdoor table (one of my fantasies is that one day I can say “Don’t you know who I am?!” and be seated immediately). The menu included appetizers, salads, soups, entrees, and “other stuff”. Trio is almost renowned in the Salt Lake Valley for their appetizers, especially the Trio flatbread (8 spears of oil-brushed flatbread with olive tampenade, white bean puree, and basil pesto on the side). The olive tampenade could have been less salty, but besides that I enjoyed it. As my entrée, I ordered a New York strip steak with a Chianti glaze. It arrived on a long white dish piled atop mashed potatoes and some carrots. The steak itself was perfectly cooked, ruby red on the inside and seared on the outside. The Chianti glaze was flavorful and delicate, perfectly complimenting the mashed potatoes. The dish was all I had hoped for when I ordered, except for one fatal flaw. Since the steak was served atop the mashed potatoes, when you cut yourself a piece, the bottom is totally coated in potatoes. Another dish worth mentioning is the sausage rigatoni. It’s not overplayed, and the spice of the sausage goes well with the sweetness of the tomato sauce. The pasta is slightly overdone (a little bit too mushy, in other words not enough bite to it), but besides this the dish accomplishes a nice balance between sweet and spicy.
Trio tries to be a chic, modern café that serves updates of classic Italian dishes. However, it seems to have more success when it innovates and creates new and different dishes, rather than trying to recreate classic Italian. Trio is a café with an identity crisis; is it serving new or old dishes? Although it enjoys relative success at both, it would be much better if it just focused on one. Come get me when that happens.

Trio- 6/10