Let me start at the end of the visit, because how the visit began made me almost not want to eat there, and I figure you’re probably reading this for the food.
My husband and I each had a panini. I decided to try the mortadella and provolone panini—I dont have enough mortadella in my life. If you haven’t had mortadella, it is a cold cut that is flavored with spices including whole or ground pepper, nutmeg, and pistachios. The way that Aroma di Roma describes this sandwich is Italian ham with pistachios, tomatoes, capers, mozzarella, and basil—all served on focaccia bread. My husband had the capicola sandwich. Neither of us had ever had capicola; it’s a traditional Italian cold cut that is similar to prosciutto. That sandwich also had mozzarella and salami.
Both sandwiches were fantastic. The bread was crunchy and toasted to perfection. Mine had so many different layers of flavor: as soon as a caper burst in my mouth, the mozzarella was right there to take care of the saltiness. I loved it, and if we were to return, I’m not sure I’d even want to try anything else since that was so good. My husband’s sandwich had a lot of meat in it, and that was exactly what he was looking for, but if it had had any basil in it, I think he would have been floored. Even though the meat was delicious, it did need a little something else to make it amazing.
The reason we came to this restaurant in the first place is because we had heard so much about the gelato, and we couldn’t leave without giving it a shot. They keep the gelato in the back, and they wouldn’t let us try any samples—it made it a little difficult to decide what we wanted because neither of us had ever had gelato before. I went with the amaretto and Ryan ordered the caramello. I won again; every single bite was so flavorful that I had to take a minute to think about everything that was going on. It was sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet—I really enjoyed it. My husband’s caramello wasn’t for me, but he really loved every bite. It was a lot more creamy than mine, but the problem was that it reminded me too much of regular ice cream.
Now on to the service. We walked in around 8PM on a weeknight. There was only one person sitting on the patio, and the one visible employee was sitting and eating a salad. He did not greet us; instead he said nothing until we started to walk out. That’s when he yelled to the back to the other person working, who brought us menus. We took a seat on the patio and waited and waited. I decided to walk back inside and find out if we should just order at the register or what we needed to do to be served. The other employee was now standing behind the register and I let him know that we’d like to order. I also asked for the restroom, and he pointed to the back, but then made a funny face and suggested I wait about ten minutes before using it. I’m not sure how I was supposed to take that, but I’m pretty sure he was saying that he had just used it and it wasn’t ready for anyone else. Gross.
I walked back to my seat on the patio and considered leaving; we had now been there about 20 minutes, had not been greeted and now I was feeling a little disgusted. This wasn’t how we were hoping our first time at Aroma di Roma would begin, but my husband really had his heart set on a panini, so we stayed. The server then came out and took our sandwich order, and we also decided to have some water while we looked over the wine menu. Once we had picked a wine, the server let us know that they usually never have the wine that is on their menu, but he’d go in the back and check what they did have. We skipped the wine. Also, our waters didn’t arrive until after both of our sandwiches were served.
As happy as we both were with our dinners and our gelato, the poor service left a bad taste in our mouths. Maybe next time, we’ll order the Paninis to go.
Aroma di Roma is located at 5327 East 2nd Street, (562) 434-6353.