The Florida Foodie
Agliolio Italian Bistro and Bar
By Saucy Sarah
“Agliolio” is a word derived from the Italian words “aglio” for garlic and “olio” for oil. The restaurant – now located in Wellington and Boynton Beach— offers fresh-made pasta that you can mix and match with an impressive array of sauces and toppings. They also offer many classic Italian dishes and an impressive wine selection. When we arrived, I was impressed by the sleek, modern, dark wood décor. The smell of tomato sauce fills the air and Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong croon away over the speakers. It was a good start to the night.
For starters, we selected the fried three-cheese ravioli ($7.00) and the Tomato-Basil Bisque ($5.00). Four very large square cheese ravioli come with a marinara dipping sauce. Fresh pasta is light-years superior over the dried variety, and the fried ravioli is a great way to experience the difference. The ravioli are stuffed with three different cheeses and fried to a golden perfection. We ate them all, they were that good. The tomato-basil bisque is creamy with a hint of spiciness at the finish. I couldn’t stop eating it. The ravioli tastes very good dipped into the soup too. A house salad comes with each entrée and is served family style, already tossed with their vinaigrette. It reminded me of Olive Garden in presentation, but the dressing was a bit blander than the chain restaurant’s version.
For our entrée’s we chose to create our own pasta dishes. We tried the cheese ravioli in a pink sauce with roasted garlic added ($12.00) and the penne pasta with Alfredo sauce and blackened chicken added ($15.00). The cheese ravioli was delicious with the pink sauce and the added roasted garlic gave it an intense garlic kick, which I liked. The Alfredo sauce at Agliolio is not the kind of sauce you find in most Italian restaurants. It is made the traditional way with butter and cream, so the sauce is much thinner than you might be accustomed to. This makes the dish lighter and allows the wonderful taste of the fresh pasta to come through. The blackened chicken that topped the dish was very flavorful and cooked nicely.
We tried to save room for one of Agliolio’s homemade desserts, but we found we could not stop eating and we were too full to try any of the sweets. Agliolio offers some of the classic desserts like Tiramisu ($7.00) Zeppoli ($6.00) and a chocolate Lasagna ($7.00) made with actual fresh pasta sheets flavored with chocolate. I am looking forward to returning to try some of these yummy sweet treats.
With moderate prices and a true, authentic, homemade Italian taste, Agliolios is a great place to take the family. There is something for everyone on the menu. I warn you, once you have had fresh pasta, you may never go back!
In her previous life, Sarah, a Palm Beach County Native, spent ten years working in various high-end eating establishments around South Florida. She is currently a fiction thesis candidate in the MFA program at Florida International University where she also teaches creative writing and rhetoric. If that is not enough, Sarah is also the owner of Cakes by Sarah, a local custom cake shop. Sarah lives in Lake Worth with her husband and two beautiful boys. “Food, fiction, and family are my life.”
