Amici's Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria Melbourne / Suntree
7720 N. Wickham Road, Unit 120
Melbourne, FL 32940
http://amicis-suntree.com
Recently, I stopped in for a quick bite at Amici's in Suntree.
It was the middle of the week at 7pm and it was pretty much a full house with a wait for a table. Since it was just the two of us, we decided to take a seat at the bar. The restaurant was full with what appeared to be mostly well to do locals in the 50+ age. The restaurant has a kid's menu, but I only saw one child in the restaurant.
The initial service by the bar server was pretty unresponsive. I kindly got his attention and got us some menus. We ordered a cocktail. My cocktail wasn't what I ordered, but que sera sera.
We got two menus. I was only interested in a small bite to eat and was looking at the appetizer section. One of my favorite Italian restaurant appetizers (and a good way to judge the ingredients used at an italian restaurant) is to get the cold antipasti. Usually, a cold antipasti at an italian restaurant consists of little bites of cured meats, Italian cheeses, marinated vegetables and olives. I asked the bar server what generally comes on it and he didn't look like he knew for sure, but he said it was a chef salad. There was no description on the menu, so I ordered it out of pure curiosity.... Sure enough, it was an antipasto salad. Rolled ham and cheese and olives over lettuce with dressing. Albeit, not what I am used to, it was pretty good nonetheless. The dressing that came with it was delicious and I believe it was homemade. At under $10, it was a good value. I couldn't finish it myself. It was also served with bread that was delicious and also homemade.
My dining companion ordered spaghetti with meat sauce and a side of italian sausage. Tomato products have a tendency to taste very raw when not cooked with other ingredients for a sufficient length of time. The tomato taste in the sauce was a bit raw for me and the texture of a meat in the sauce was a bit boiled. Let me qualify my meat sauce comments by saying that many of my closest relatives were born and raised in Italy; so when it comes to spaghetti sauce....I'm a pretty harsh critic. For that reason, I almost never order pasta at a restaurant. I am sure 80% of the people that eat the meat sauce at Amici's would think it is great. For me, it just wasn't something I would order again.
The side of italian sausage in marinara was wonderful. The sausage tasted homemade and not generic in anyway. It had a delicious fennel flavor. For me, the only thing that would have made it go from excellent to outstanding would be if the casing on the sausage was crisped a bit by a hard sear before serving it.
Overall, my experience at Amici's positive. I would like to go back again and try some more of the meat dishes. After diner, we stopped in at their Italian Bakery next door and picked up a few desserts and cookies. The desserts were okay. The butter cookies were awesome.
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