Buona Sera Ristorante TODOTC.com To Do in the Twin Cities Restaurants Buona Sera Ristorante Date: June 7, 2024 11949 W River Rd Champlin, MN 55316 Phone: (763) 421-1814 www.buonaserawinebar.com

Buona Sera

Did you ever go on vacation and get a REALLY NICE rental vehicle with every bell & whistle that was offered on that model? Then after a few days come home from vacation and have to drive the vehicle you came with? Well, that can happen with restaurants too.

E came from South Dakota and I’m a cheesehead. The way we found many restaurants back where we were raised is by looking for the entrance sign usually at the bottom of a Pabst Blue Ribbon emblem. We were each raised in small town environments. So far be it for US to criticize what would be a fine small-town restaurant.

The problem is the rental car problem. A week ago, we ate at Dario the latest new Italian restaurant in the Twin Cities… it was in a word OMG! This week we also ate at an Italian restaurant about 15 minutes away from Dario and it was not great.

Is it fair to judge the two against each other, maybe not… and yet. We try to tell you about the great places to go. And the price comparison had we had the same number of dishes at each is not even $40… a trip to McDonalds these days.

If you desire to support a local restaurant, which we do all the time. In this case it was in Champlin. We have found some phenomenal local restaurants; this is not one of them.

Let me tell you of our experience. We have an Explorer with GPS mapping. I let the computer map our route, we are kind of tech people. So, we went from Washington Ave downtown from our wine tasting North on 94 to 252, north to 610 then on Zane Ave North which goes past Buona Sera. It’s north of Brooklyn Center & Park.

Now I might be wrong but if the roads are closed down by police so you have to ask permission to go to the restaurant that night, because a once a year parade is coming through, might that be mentioned when we made reservations… it was not. Thankfully there was parking spaces left. But it kind of raised our stress level going in. BTW I had to ask the nice policeman why there was a police line why there was barricades… there days was there a shooting?... He nicely told us of the parade.

It's the little things that make the difference.

So, we arrived at Buona Sera and it looked like a great place to have a burger & beer with great patios. Perhaps I would have a different review had we done that. But it was an Italian restaurant I was asked by a friend to review so we got what she suggested… Italian.

The inside of Buona Sera is a quaint little restaurant with wine bottles on most walls. So, we expected good wine. We ALWAYS drink wine by the glass. We do so, so we can have two different wines and compare. Turns out there IS no wine list. The waitress told us the wines they had by the glass: Malbec, Cab Sav, Pinot Noir… no countries or wineries. I don’t remember that ever happening to us. If the Noir is from Argentina we’ll pass.

Though we have been tasting wine for ten years I’m still working on the red/white thing. But the other night at a tasting the teacher said if you order a Noir and you can not see your fingers through the glass, you are NOT drinking a Noir. Guess what… LOL. SO I have NO idea what I was drinking but apparently it was not a Noir a very light wine. But both our wines were drinkable.

We asked about why no wine list. We were told it changes all the time, so they just had the waitresses tell the customers… OK! You are NOT scoring points!

So, we ordered a house salad each with French, it was good. Took me back to Cheeseland. Then Bruschetta which was like some dry bread with tomato chips poured on it. Finally, Pasta Al Pomodoro with red sauce. It was very bland.

The owner came over and asked how everything was and we lied and said fine. Why upset his life? The waitress was just short of shocked we were not boxing up the leftovers. But frankly E prepares a better dish.

Would I say avoid the place? Not at all but there are dozens of great Italian restaurants in town, and this simply is not one of them. But clearly the locals like it. I’m glad we went because people have asked us about the place.  Our bill was $60.53 not to bad, but it is not on our top 200. We wish them the best.

Contact us Dennis@ToDoTC.com