My friend Katherine treated me to a great evening at the Ringling International Arts Festival last night (since her husband Greg did not care to sit through experimental theater), and she made reservations for us at the Treviso restaurant, the Ringling Museum's on-site, full-service restaurant. I had not been there before but had always wanted to try it out.
The atmosphere is nice enough. There were quite a few diners already there when we arrived at 6:00 p.m., and continued to fill up while we ate. But there was a festival going on, so I doubt this was a typical evening.
But upon my initial perusal of the dinner menu, I already saw a problem. There were a couple of salads, the Treviso (baby greens, parmesan, tomatoes and vinaigrette) and a caesar. Out of the five or six appetizers there was only one vegetarian option, a bruschetta with black bean salad, hummus and tomato-basil salsa toppings. And there were no vegetarian options among the main courses. However, we asked our server if the chef could prepare a vegetarian entrée. He had to go check and came back with a proposed grilled vegetable ravioli. Sounded good to us! We both ordered that and a caesar salad (I'm not opposed to anchovies). The caeser was not bad, there was not too much dressing on it, and not too much garlic in the dressing which I find tricky with most caesars, either too much garlic or too much anchovie; this seemed just right. The croutons were pretty huge and I made the mistake of trying to stuff a whole one in one bite. Katherine assured me that the Italians do this all the time and they just laugh about it, which is what I was doing, so I guess I fit right in.
Then the ravioli showed up before we finished our salads. It was a strange sight as it was about three mid-sized ravioli swimming in a brown broth. There were julienned sundried tomatoes (which I love), some sliced portabella, and wilted greens. I think it was supposed to be spinach but almost had the texture of beet greens (either way, I like both of those), but the broth was too odd, was a little salty and had almost a "beefy" taste, but I'm sure it was all vegetarian. The ravioli were stuffed with spinach and ricotta. I ate all of mine because it was "okay" and I was hungry. But it was not anything to bring me back for more. But we didn't really want to complain either as this was a special, unprepared for request. Although, in my opinion, a restaurant should always have at least one vegetarian option on the menu. And today I went to their website and found that this grilled vegetable ravioli is offered as a regular item on the menus they have posted online, but did not appear on the menu at the restuarant.
We then tried our luck with a couple of decaf coffees, which I think had been sitting on the burner too long, and a dessert split between us. We looked at the dessert menu and of course they had the standard tiramisu, but what caught my eye was the chocolate ricotta tart. Upon ordering, the server commented on what a good choice it was. That sounded promising. Then the dessert was brought to us by a different server, more likely someone from the kitchen, with the comment that this was a nice one to share. Wow! We were really looking forward to this scrumptious treat since the main meal left us unimpressed. We took our first bite expectantly and instead of an "mmmmm," got, "hmm?" I said it tasted like one of those non-dairy tofu desserts, but probably not even that good. It was pretty flavorless. What a disappointment. I think the servers got our expectations a little too high with their comments.
Now my curiosity about the place is satisfied, if not my palate. The prices are on the high side as well, so for you vegetarian foodies out there, I can't really recommend Treviso as an option for dinner. The online menu claims to have a few more veg options on the lunch menu, but just like dinner, don't know if that's what you'll find when you get there. If you're at the museum for a full day, look at it this way, it's better than the microwaved Boca burgers you get at the lunch counter at Jungle Gardens or Lowry Park Zoo!
Treviso for dinner: 2 out of 5 soybeans.
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