After being dark since Eureka! closed in 2020 due to COVID, the corner of McKinney Avenue and Blackburn Street is officially alive and well.
Fiatto is a casual new Italian-American restaurant offering seasonally inspired dishes. Executive Chef Kylil Henson’s background includes Flora Street Café, French Laundry (Yountville, CA), DBGB Kitchen and Bar (Washington, DC) and Coque (Madrid, Spain). General Manager John Del Canton previously worked as beverage director under celebrity chef Tom Colicchio and helped establish the Cowboys Club at the Star in Frisco. Almost everything at Fiatto is homemade, including breads, pastas, mozzarella, broths and sauces.
We checked it out on a recent Tuesday night and at first glance the secret is out. We arrived for an early dinner around 6pm and there were only a few tables left. We sat at the bar and were immediately greeted by the bartenders who were mixing up a variety of unique cocktails. Decor has a coastal vibe with bright pops of color, natural wood, and a flood of natural light with floor-to-ceiling windows.
queen bee
Angie Quebedeaux
Fiatto’s signature cocktail is the Queen Bee ($12), a refreshing gin cocktail with herbal tea, honey and lemon served in a bee-shaped glass with a bouquet of tiny white flowers for garnish. The Cosmo Royale ($12) is served with Citron vodka, cranberry, orange and Italicus liqueur, the latter adding aromatic flavor to balance the fruit.
Caprese salad with focaccia
Angie Quebedeaux
To start, we had the caprese ($15) and the focaccia. The caprese has small slices of colorful tomatoes, burrata imported from Italy, fresh basil and aged balsamic vinegar. The burrata is creamy on the inside with a firm texture on the outside that spreads beautifully over a piece of their homemade focaccia. The focaccia measures about 6 inches in diameter, large enough to share between two people without spoiling your appetite. It can be ordered with pepperoni sauce, fontina fondue or both. We opted for the bread without sauce and instead dipped it in the aged balsamic from our caprese.
Trout saltimboca
Angie Quebedeaux
For the main entree, we tried the saltimbocca trout ($27). Four pieces of trout fillets are wrapped in prosciutto and served with cippolini onions and mushrooms in a marsala sauce. The prosciutto gives the fish a nice salty crunch when you bite into it and the onions and mushrooms add a nice touch to the light Marsala sauce.
We also tried the pappardelle topped with a hearty stew of short ribs and whipped ricotta, topped with crispy rosemary ($26). A piece of short ribs, with a small heap of ricotta swaddled in pappardelle, was the best bite of the night.
For dessert, we opted for cannoli. The cream filling was light and not too sweet and had a nice crunch from the chocolate chip bits on each end and the crispy golden cannoli shell. We don’t usually order dessert in restaurants as we are often too full, but their cannoli are worth saving space for.
A few other dishes we saw at other tables ensured our return, such as the Caesar salad, the calamari and the tuna tartare. The Caesar ($13) was large enough to be a meal and is served with Little Gems lettuce, parmesan cheese, croutons and white anchovy vinaigrette. The calamari fritti ($15) seemed to be perfectly breaded and served with crispy lemon and cherry pepper aioli. This appetizer was large enough to share between two people. And the tuna tartare ($19) delivered a lovely presentation with chunks of fresh ahi tuna, orange, Castelvetrano olives, Calabrian peppers, and saffron aioli. Like we said, we’ll be back for more.
Fiatto, 3700 McKinney Ave., 5-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 5pm-11pm from Friday to Saturday; 5pm-9pm Sunday
Comments are closed.