Best Italian Restaurants in Crestview

Not only was our meal typically excellent, but the hostess was a hoot and our server lovely and attentive. I thought I lost a glove, and the hostess got completely involved in helping me find it; it was next to my car in the parking lot and when I went back in to call off the search, the hostess and I had another rather hilarious encounter and, as I turned to leave, I heard her shout to the rest of the crew, "SHE FOUND IT!" Now, THAT's a community in a kitchen!!!

Overall The Grove is amazing. They pick great locations! Patios in the trees are excellent. The food is reliable and service great. The interior of the NW Hills location looks like a Panera Bread chain location. They could have done better on the decor but it doesn’t matter if you have a great lunch guest and a great bottle of wine!

Always awesome! Happy hour specials are so worth coming early! And we stay late too!

Our server, Leeann C was incredibly kind. She offered to take our group photo as we were celebrating the Christmas holiday over lunch. When I asked about the soup of the day and told her my favorite was the tomato bisque, she said it wasn't on today's menu but she went to the kitchen and found out the chef's were already preparing it. She subbed it for me to make me happy!

Our dinner last night was so lovely. We're parents of a toddler so we don't get out much. We had a babysitter and decided to use a gift card for one of our past favorite restaurants. Everything was absolutely delicious. We started with the rosemary sourdough bread with butter, escarole and Frisee salad, and Polpette meatballs. The bread has a great flavor and good texture. Every aspect of the salad was incredible - the dressing, the grapefruit, the honey Aleppo almonds. And the Polpette were some of the best meatballs I've tried. We really enjoyed the chicken milanesa and the black pepper Pappardelle dish had amazing texture (all their pastas are made in-house) but I feel could have had a more interesting flavor. I had really wanted to try the Tiramisu, one of my favorite desserts, but we were so stuffed. All the wine and cocktails were tasty. We sat on the patio since we wanted to order off the A la carte menu but it was so quiet and dead outside. Some music or something piped outside might have been nice. We used to frequent L'Oca d'Oro before the pandemic and before having kids, but we hadn't been back since Fall 2019. I was happy to see the ways in which the restaurant pivoted during the pandemic and all that they have done to care for their employees, very admirable. Overall, we really loved our meal and we will happily be back!