Tolla's restaurant review

Tolla's is at 240 N. Pennsylvania Ave. in Winter Park’s Hannibal Square. Lunch is served Tuesday through Saturday and dinner is served Tuesday through Sunday. Call 407-628-0068 or visit them on Facebook.

It’s almost a cliché to say that the food in a real Italian restaurant is good because the recipes go back to someone’s grandmother from the Old Country. The great news about Tolla’s Italian Café in Winter Park’s Hannibal Square is that the food is wonderful and the recipes have indeed been handed down to Gary Tolla from his grandmother. Bless her … and him … and the restaurant. Oh, and that’s Sinatra singing in the background. Who else?

If you haven’t yet experienced the wonderfully olive oil-rich tastes from Tolla’s, it may be thanks to its location at 240 N. Pennsylvania Ave., about six blocks north of Fairbanks Avenue and west of fashionable Park Avenue. But the neighborhood-friendly atmosphere, the food and the lower-than-Park Ave. prices definitely make this restaurant worth finding.

There are regular-height tables and high-tops inside the restaurant, but the fun place to eat is on the outdoor patio. I started, appropriately, with a Caesar salad. What could be more Italian than that? The greens were dressed in Tolla’s homemade dressing while the warm, crusty bread — served with oil and vinegar for dipping — became the perfect counter-point to the greens.

I tried three of Tolla’s signature entrees — hey, I was hungry — and each one is a winner. As in traditional Italian cooking, the food is well prepared and not rushed. The one place where Gary Tolla’s background in large restaurants (Marriott’s for example) shows up is in the plating. Each entrée was presented simply but effectively, garnished with grated parmesan and parsley sprinkled around the rim of the plate. A nice touch.

The sautéed chicken picatta was slice-with-a-fork tender and served in a perfect blend of white wine, butter and capers. I’m not sure why those little capers make such a difference, but they do, and Tolla uses them generously. Next I tried the shrimp aioli, which is served with a luxurious combination of penne pasta that has been sautéed in olive oil garlic, artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes. I’m told that olive oil is the secret that allows Italians to eat pasta every day and still remain thin. True or not, I could happily consume any and all of the delicate sauces from Tolla’s kitchen every day and not care about the olive oil’s effect on my waistline.

Finally, I tasted the stuffed chicken Tolla, and once again, the chicken was wonderfully tender and wrapped around the most incredible mix of feta cheese, prosciutto and spinach. This dream-come-true entrée was then sauced lightly with tomato marinara. Usually, dear readers, this is the point at which I give you my personal favorite, but the wonderful news is as I go back over each distinctive taste, they are all so good that I honestly do not have a favorite. Therefore, I recommend each one as highly as I recommend this charming eatery run by a man who knows and loves food.