I’m a bit of a car guy, so I was thrilled to watch — and listen — as some of the sweetest rides known to man thrummed on by. There was a cherry-red Ferrari F430 Spyder convertible, steel-blue Porsche 911 Carrera, and coal-black Maserati Quattropporte. You might assume that I was at some swanky motoring show, but I was merely trying to enjoy dinner at M Italian, the latest see-and-be-seen spot in Chagrin Falls.
More attention seemed to be focused on the valet station, which runs the length of the front patio like the red carpet from a Hollywood awards show, than on the meals directly in front of people’s noses. That’s fitting because the restaurant itself seems to place more importance on aesthetics than it does on food.
Over the course of two meals I found myself thinking: For a restaurant this attractive and crowds this thick, one would expect food with a little more personality. The locals have a nickname for the place — M’Olive Garden — but that doesn’t stop them from beating down the door to claim a table, even if it’s at 5:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, at which point the hostess suggests one take a seat at the bar to ride out the 40-minute wait.
The indoor-outdoor bar does make a great vantage point from which to take in the scene. Seated inside, barflies can follow the red carpet action taking place out front. Seated outside, guests have great views of the highly stylized dining room, which looks like an Anthropologie store with waiters in place of sales attendants. The distressed, monochromatic views are broken up by an open kitchen, roaring pizza oven and imposing blown-glass chandeliers likely brought in from the highly visible glass-blowing studio in an adjacent space.
Owner Bret Adams has made a living selling common food in uncommon spaces. His ever-expanding Burntwood Tavern family of eateries is known more for its rustic and relaxed setting than cutting-edge cuisine, and M appears to follow the same tack. Here, Italian-American staples like pizza, pasta and grilled meats populate a menu with few surprises. Order right and you can walk away with a decent meal. Choose wrong and you’re left scratching your head in bemusement.
Meals begin with warm, doughy bread served alongside a dish of seasoned olive oil. On one visit that bread was buoyant and poufy as a Bundt cake. On another it was flat as a johnnycake. Our bowl of Grandma Rosie’s wedding soup ($6) was thin, tepid and so sparsely populated by ingredients that it might have passed as consommé. We counted two fava bean-sized meatballs and a complete absence of chicken.
We had much better luck with a plate of prosciutto-wrapped shrimp, but at three for $14 they aren’t much of a bargain. The medium-size shrimp are crispy, salty and only a tad dry from the roast. They are perched atop a lovely white bean salad with greens, tomatoes, cheese and crostini. A few seconds longer in the deep fryer would have done wonders for our vegetable frites ($9), a pile of pale but well-seasoned veggies accompanied by two types of dip.
Pizzas, cooked in the wood-burning oven, arrive appropriately dark, crusty and undeniably tasty. All are priced at $14 and are topped with combos like sausage and spicy peppers, chicken pesto and artichokes, or four cheese. Consider ordering a few as appetizers for the table as soon as you sit down to speed things along.
Pastas at M seem to be hit or miss. A large and lovely meatball — flavorful and the opposite of dense — sits proudly in a bowl of chewy cavatelli ($16), melty mozzarella blobs and bright marinara. Undercooked penne sinks a second pasta ($17) that consists of little more than torn basil, crushed tomatoes and a few bland shrimp.
A thick-cut, bone-in pork chop ($19) is gilded by a fat cap of broiled gorgonzola cheese, making it exceedingly rich but also savory and satisfying. It, like all of the entrees, is paired with the same starch and veggie combo: sautéed broccolini and roasted fingerling potatoes. In addition to the chop, M offers salmon, steak and chicken.
We took the hostess up on her offer of bar seats one night just as happy hour was winding down. The bartenders could barely keep up, rushing to and fro like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory. We counted three broken glasses in the first hour. Those that didn’t break were filthy, but we drank wine out of them anyway to calm our nerves because the dining room gives the falls a run for its money in the noise department.
And this was with the garage door façade flung wide open. Come fall, things are bound to get much, much worse.
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2015.
If you don’t know the restaurant’s name, that is such a confusing headline at first.
Sounds like I will and can spend my money elsewhere…thanks for the review
Ate there twice. The food is terrible. Olive Garden is 5 star compared to M Italian. I wouldn’t feed it to my dog.
Sorry, but it is a new restaurant. We go there at least 4x
a week. Like any other restaurant, you will like some items better than others, depending on your taste.
They will be adding new menu items as time goes by.
We eat out 7 days a week and thoroughly enjoy M.
You failed to mention their salmon is superb, as is their
bolongese pasta, their strip steak, exceptional,salads desserts are wonderful!The staff is overly accommodating . The view is wonderful. You forgot the
Rolls Royce and Bentley in the Hollywood mix atmosphere. Remember if you made the wrong choice of food today… You will eat again tomorrow!!
Give M another try and express your issues with a manager, they will very likely fix any issue you may have.And No I’m just a patron of M,not in any way connected to the restaurant. Just be kind.
Let me add, they don’t turn on the air!!!!!
On a warm night a few Saturday’s ago it was miserable. Plus the food was marginal at best
M Italian won’t last 2 years in Chagrin Falls. The food is average at best. You can’t charge top dollar for average food. If you want really good pizza & authentic Italian cuisine travel 5 minutes down Chagrin Blvd. to Flour. Flour’s wood burnt pizzas are 100 times better than those flatbreads (called pizzas) that M Italian serves. M Italian is just as bad as The Burntwood restaurants.
I have been to M about 7 times and am thoroughly impressed. We’ve lived in Chagrin for 40 years and eat out about 5 times per week. M’s food is very tasty and reasonably priced. Great atmosphere. It’ll be a success for many years to come.
Its no secret that Mr. Trattner has it out for Mr. Adams. It just one has the power of the pen. Wish we knew the entire story.
We visit M Italian 3-4 times a month and eat out several times a week. The aesthetics of the restaurant are beautiful. The inside – outside bar is fabulous. If you are looking for a quite, intimate dinner, this isn’t the place. However, if you are looking for great atomsphere, energy and a place that makes you feel you could be in a fun NYC or Chicago bar (while in Northeast Ohio), M Italian fits the bill. The bartenders pour a very nice drink and despite a huge crowd, do a great job remembering what we like every time we stop in. The salads are a little sparse, but the pizzas and the pastas are great Yes, people who usually show up make an effort to put on nice clothes and look put together. That is a good thing. Despite the authors opinion, M Italian will do well for a very long time. It is in a great location and has the kind of energy that keeps people coming back.
Why does each positive comment mention how many times per week the commenter eats out? Seems a little…odd.
Bad food, bad service
All the Burntwood concepts are good but the food is always a let down. Again, a great restaurant needs more than a great looking room. The service, food and value have to be there. They are opening a new location it seems every other week and NONE are any good. Sorry, I have tried them all, even in Rocky River……..Just not good.
I eat out at least 25 times per week. At least 10 of those meals each week are at M. It is amazing– Definitely better than olive garden. I have lived in the Cleveland area for over 60 years. M will be around for a long long time with great success! I believe it might even outlast the times of mankind. I mean if we are taken over by some other beings, M is one of the few things they will probably keep. They might adjust the menu a bit for their own tastes though.
These comments are hilarious, that’s something I was wondering myself, why do they keep mentioning how often they eat out?? We get it, you have money to blow… As far as M(ichelle), she’s genuinely a great lady but if any of you “loyal patrons” saw what goes on behind the scenes in any of her husbands establishments, you’d feel like fools & never go back. They treat their employees very poorly and know how to sucker those of you who keep coming back, by calling you VIPs. I imagine that people who need to go out to dinner that often, must really not know a thing about food or they would be cooking real food in their own kitchens instead of being bamboozled by the ambiance of this franchise. I have heard comically terrible reviews of pacos as well, but hey, to each their own. If you feel important by paying that much for barely average food then mangia! I’d be hoping for the success of the Adams if they were even half as loyal to you as you are to them.