First Impression

John: Christmas came early for me this week when I found out that it was Copsey’s last Dining Duo. For the past six months, I’ve had to pretend to like him as we ate meal after meal. It’s kind of like eating dinner with your in-laws, only worse. Anyway, for our last meal together (we wanted to call this the Last Supper, but we were eating lunch, so it didn’t work) we headed to Ippolito’s. Now I’ve never been to this Italian mainstay on Holcomb Bridge Road, but right away I was impressed. Even though there was only the two of us, the hostess put us in a booth that could have sat me, Copsey and all of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, it was huge. As we sat down, I quickly scanned the restaurant for one thing: a picture of the Mona Lisa. If you’re an Italian restaurant and you don’t have a picture of the Mona Lisa somewhere, then you might as well be McDonalds to me. Ippolito’s scored twice, without getting up from my seat, I saw two pictures of Mona Lisa.

Copsey: Readers make the common mistake of thinking John and I actually like each other. In fact, the Dining Duos are little more than sullen time spent glaring at each other. Anyway, I’ve had Ippolito’s before, during the course of my journalistic career, but have never actually been into the restaurant. Let me say that I enjoyed the place, not only for the Italian feel of the place, but, since it was pouring rain faster than John chugs Red Bull, the presence of a fireplace was a great plus.  

John: A
Copsey: A-

Appetizers

John: I don’t know if Ippolito’s heard about it being Copsey’s last day, but they brought us out free bread rolls to start off with. These are hands down the tastiest free rolls I have ever had. Some restaurants don’t go all out with their free rolls, they figure, ‘the customer can’t complain because it’s free.’ Well, the rolls here are smothered in olive oil, probably a little butter and some parmesan cheese. On top of that, they’re served with a marinara sauce that makes them taste four times better. For our actual appetizer, we ordered the Pepe. This dish consists of slices of Italian sausage that are wrapped in dough, brushed with honey and then baked. The biggest treat here was the honey. Honey goes on anything. Unfortunately many of the world’s top chefs have not realized this yet. The taste of the spicy sausage mixed with the sweetness of the honey was a perfect combination.

Copsey: My mother makes a dish for holidays she calls ‘sausage rolls.’ They are basically minced sausage baked in dough. So ordering the Pepe brought back all sorts of yuletide memories for me. Next time she makes it, I’m demanding it come with honey.

John: A
Copsey: A

Entrée

John: Since we were there for lunch, I decided to order a lunch special, the Buffalo chicken sandwich. Now this Buffalo chicken sandwich had all the makings of a traditional one – fried chicken smothered in buffalo sauce, blue cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion – the big difference here was that the sandwich was served on a ciabatta bun. To me, ciabatta buns are something you order with your mom and your sister when you eat at Panera bread. Wow, I was wrong; you can eat ciabatta buns at Ippolito’s too. The bun was soft and crispy and because of its small size, I got to enjoy more of the main part of what I was eating, namely the Buffalo chicken. Copsey, because he’s on the Atkins diet, ordered the broccoli linguini. If there is a health conscious person at your table, this dish is perfect. It’s broccoli and sun-dried tomatoes served over linguini. Someone at the table sitting behind us actually ordered this dish, so Copsey wasn’t the only crazy one in the restaurant.

Copsey: For some reason this dish jumped off the menu at me. It looked interesting. Sure, anyone can go to an Italian restaurant and order pizza or meatballs. But what about something different? Sautéed broccoli with garlic and linguini is pretty different in my book. Throw in the tasty kick of sun-dried tomatoes and you have a winner. We also had the chicken bruschetta/ flatbread. Think pizza but slightly healthier and much thinner.   

John: B+
Copsey: A-

Dessert

John: I hate to disappoint everyone, but Copsey didn’t take a 30 dollar tequila shot (like he did last week) and I didn’t eat cake until my cholesterol level was higher than the average annual rainfall in Seattle. Instead, we didn’t do dessert. It was lunch and again, Copsey is on that diet, so we passed. Although I will note that if you do order dessert, they have giant slices of chocolate cake and huge pieces of tiramisu. If you order both of those, my guess is you will like them.

Copsey: We made the mistake of walking past the dessert display as we left. Had we not had work to go to (and reviews to write) we might very well have turned right around and sat back down.

John: N/A
Copsey: N/A

Final Impression

John: Ippolito’s had a lot on the menu we didn’t get to try. Pizza, calzones, Stromboli, ravioli, spaghetti – basically, if it ended in the letter ‘I’, we didn’t get to it. I will say that if I could do this review over again, I would have definitely showed up for dinner instead of lunch. Don’t get me wrong, Ippolito’s did a great job at serving us lunch, but this is the kind of place where you want to sit down and enjoy yourself. At lunch, you always feel like you’re in a hurry. We were in and out in under an hour. Next time I eat at Ippolito’s, I am going to request a spot by the fireplace, ask them to turn up the boy band Christmas carols they were playing (if you’re there in the next five days, you’ll know what I’m talking about) and enjoy the food they have to offer. Ippolito’s does serve alcohol, so if relatives are already starting to get to you, I highly suggest a Pepe and a Peroni.

Copsey: It’s definitely a place to come for dinner, and yes, having a fireplace and XFM tuned to the Christmas channel made it that much more cozy.

John: A-
Copsey: A-