baraonda

love this place!. excellent food. excellent service. and thewinelist is superb! would highly recommend :-)

the good, the bad and the pizza. went here tonight at the suggestion of the concierge desk at the w hotel. it gets a mixed review. first, it's a beautiful space. it pretty much looks the part of a traditional-style italian restaurant, or as close as you would get in the u.s. and then i heard the theme song to the latest bourne movie. um...okay. my server, annie, was friendly and pretty prompt. i ordered a cocktail to start and then waited and waited until a guy **in a plaid shirt** and jeans delivered the cocktail with a sticky stem. (sigh). okay. the servers and busboys are wearing black shirts and long black aprons and an assistant manager is in a plaid shirt.

the lights and candles added a nice ambiance as the sun went down and i realized i had one of the best seats in the house, even though i was dining alone; perfect view of the wood burning oven. i ordered a pizza (romana, i believe, with pancetta, onions and sun dried tomatoes). although the oven is wood burning, they need to crank up the heat a few notches, as the pizza wasn't remotely charred and the crust hadn't even risen very much. the pizza was pretty overloaded, the onions - lets be honest - would have benefitted enormously by being caramelized rather than simply fried and the tomatoes tasted kind of cheap.

part way through, i asked annie for a recommendation for a glass of mid-priced full-bodied red wine. again delivered by the plaid shirt with a sticky stem. thewineitself, though, was wonderful. stellar. so i really must say, annie's service, recommendations and conversation kind of saved the show, even though she was pretty busy by the end of my visit.

this restaurant could be a lot more, with just a few changes. first, require *everyone* dress the part, not just the staff earning $2.13/hour (and wipe down the glassware stems). crank up the wood fire heat (perhaps heating it a few hours earlier; 500 degrees is not hot enough for the product you are supposed to deliver from a wood-burning oven). pare down the pizza toppings. and for heaven's sake, put on some decent italian music. if i want to hear contemporary music, i'll go to a fast food place, diner or american-style place. i wanted to like this place a lot more than i actually did.

pizza was great, arugula salad understated and close to perfect,winelist diverse, service acceptable, background music.......distracting. i don't need frank or dino to get in the mood for italian, but if i wanted to hear thumping euro-dance tracks i'd go to ibiza. it's a small thing. maybe i'm getting old.

evening ruined by the service. thewineselection was pretty decent. even the atmosphere was alright and located downtown. the food was... comparable to olive garden. we all ordered pasta dishes, one of which was vegetarian. our appetites, however, were ruined by our server who left quite an impression. weeks later, i am still struck by his insolently rude manner, will never return, nor recommend this place.

very nice dinner outside. stopped in for an early dinner and was very satisfied.

started with the arugula salad (baby arugula, caramelized shallots, pancetta, parmigiano, with lemon and olive oil dressing) that was a great refreshing range of flavors. very nice for a salad. for a main went with the tagliatelle funghi (shitaki, portobello, button mushrooms in a light cream sauce, tuffle oil) that was a generous portion of rich and creamy pasta with an absolute pile of tasty mushrooms.

service was friendly and efficient, and with the combination of a fantastic day and a glass ofwineon the covered patio on the side, it was about a perfect meal.

food good, service almost insulting. we went for meal before show at fox on sunday evening. i asked about the sunday evening special, and the waiter said disdainfully, "well, it comes with beer." then we asked about the portion sizes and he said they were small. the bread basket was stale and only good for sopping up the olive oil. we had salads and shared a pizza. the food andwinewere very good, but the service was lousy. the waiter acted as if he was we were hardly worth the bother. once we received our food, we didn't see the waiter again until he brought the check. we left a 20% tip, even though he probably had dismissed us as two old ladies who were probably too cheap or poor to eat there.

i really like this restaurant. it's walking distance to the fox, has a greatwineselection, and the food is darn good. i had snapper which was delicious but the pizzas i saw going by made me want to come back just to try one.

fantasticwinebar!!!. on our way to the fox and had 30 minutes to grab a bite, walked by thewinebar storefront of this restaurant and decided to grab a seat at the bar. friendly staff and we were told we could easily be out on time. the menu is limited and very fried...but you could still get things from the main restaurant. we started with the fried gnocchi with prosciutto that were really fried dough balls with a thin slice of prosciutto on top (do not attempt to bite into these as you will end up with a piece of ham hanging from your mouth...it happened to both of us!) these were wierd but good. next up we ordered two fried stuffed pizzas which were really mini calzones that were suprisingly light and delicate...i think i just got goose bumps! we had the goat cheese with spinach and a chicken one...both came with the most incredible marinara, so simple and crazy good...the perfect meal and we were out in 30!! again, the staff is great and very accomodating, thewinemenu is good...but could be written in a more user friendly way as it's kinda hard to read if your in a rush...we had one of my standbys...the qupe syrah.

baraonda cafe midtown atl. close to fox theatre walking distance, very good service and the pasta and seafood was good and reasonably priced. they have a pretty extensivewineselection also. i would recommend

needed a quick bite with the family before the show at the fox theatre. this place is a good surprise. servers were fast.wineselection is good. family n kid friendly. we had calamari , pizza magherita, olives n prosciutto salad. the pizza was a hit. thin crust, tangy tomato and topped with some fresh basil. simple n superb. server recommended half bottle of vino was also surprisingly good. fast n efficient service. very reasonable prices.

nicewineselection- not too expensive. baraonda has a very nice wood-fired oven and their pizzas are great- i had the 4-cheese pizza and it was fantastic. they also have a greatwinelist- including many italian wines- but beware, the majority of the red wines on the list are rather pricey.

our server was excellent and the patio seating is hard to beat on a cool evening.