Gnocchi’s Ristorante – Calgary, AB
Gnocchi’s Ristorante & Dining Lounge
1238 – 8 St. SW
Calgary, AB
(403) 262-2887
I was introduced to Gnocchi’s during a business lunch a few years back, and it continues to be a favorite spot to enjoy a glass of wine and some fantastic food while we pretend to work over the lunch hour.
“The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you’re hungry again.” George Miller.
As we are usually only here for lunch, we tend to skip appetizers in favor of a bottle of wine – but we decided to splurge today and start with the Italian sausage in a mustard brandy cream sauce. I can’t repeat some of the inappropriate comments made by my colleagues over how amazing this sauce is, but trust me – it truly was fantastic, and there was not a drop left anywhere in sight.
We were offered a sample of the sweet-potato gnocchi, which differed from the regular gnocchi mostly by a denser texture. I didn’t quite catch the details of the sauce, although I think I heard Marscapone cheese.
My entree is a tried and true pick – Gnocchi Da Mare. A mix of seafood in a beautiful ricotta-brandy sauce. The sauce is surprisingly light, and is a perfect base to mate the chewy gnocci to the perfectly cooked seafood. Consistently perfect, in every way.
If the namesake dish isn’t to your liking, the menu is full of other dishes ranging from veal, fish, chicken, and a variety of pastas. With an array of dishes at our table, I know everyone left completely satisfied as we all commented on how we all like coming here. Salute!
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This all sounds and looks pretty good – visually though, they look really heavy. How is the price point for these dishes? Will give it consideration when I am back in Cowtown.
Of the three dishes photographed, the sweet-potato gnocchi was heaviest – in that there was a cheese sauce over the extra dense gnocchi.
The mustard easily balanced the fat in the sausage (even with added cream), although this plate was shared by four people, so it wasn’t too much of a good thing. I believe this was about $8-9 – fair for what you got.
I mentioned that the ricotta brandy sauce on my entree was surprisingly light, which really did provide a nice balance, especially for a lunch meal. I believe pricing for most lunch entrees was between $12-16 which I found fair for what you got.
Wow, mustard and brandy, with salty meat…..i would most likely marry that!! Wow, what a nice find in Cow-Town. Haven’t been in ages, but this is a must eat next time I’m in Alberta!
Hours after lunch, we had an incident where someone hurt himself diving over a table when we jokingly spotted a drip of sauce on another’s necktie.
I heard they had an amazing ossobuco dish on their dinner menu, which I need to make time for one of these days.
ha ha i don’t doubt it……asking my friends in calgary, they rave about almost everything on the menu…..i’m getting hungry!!
OMG!!!!!!!!!! The gnocchi Da Mare looks AMAZING!!!! I am going to have to try this out ASAP!!! Was it reasonable price wise?
Definitely reasonable prices. I’m not 100% on this, but I believe the gnocchi da mare was priced in the upper range of the lunch menu, at $16.
Having never been there for dinner – I have no idea if the portions and prices stay the same.
I haven’t been to Gnocchi in years. My boyfriend had the Ossobuco the last time we were there and I remember it being very good. My dish on the other hand was horrible. I can’t remember what it was called, but it had seafood and I suppose none of the clams had been cleaned because every bite sounded like “CRUNCH CRUNCH”. There was so much sand and grit everywhere. And when I complained to the waitress…she did nothing AND charged me for it, despite the fact that I barely ate any of it. I’ve never been back since. However, this review is making me want to try it again. I suppose I shouldn’t ban it forever because of one bad experience. That Gnocchi Da Mare looks fabulous!
@Becs, LOL I know a lot of Calgarians who are not comfortable with seafood let alone cleaning them. I would have summoned their maître d’ and demanded a replacement.