Gocciolina

The food is phenomenal! Our server was attentive and knowledgeable about the food and drinks. I am a big fan of the "bring food as it's ready" model, we shared everything and were thrilled with the freshness, taste, and temperature. The menu is super accommodating for gluten free diners.

Ah, Gocciolina. Being a Durham native that grew up right down Guess Road, I've had a lot of interest in visiting with all of the hype surrounding a must-see Italian restaurant on Guess Road. Really, on Guess Road?? That, along with the fact that you need to plan well in advance with a reservation, built a lot of suspense before we were finally able to visit. I tried to keep that in mind during my experience, so that my super high expectations didn't ruin my potential experience of solid but not stellar food. We visited Gocciolina for our anniversary as a special treat. I booked my reservation in advance and they were able to accommodate us about 20 minutes early. They weren't wildly busy, but it's a small restaurant which understandably makes it difficult to get a seat if they have even a steady crowd coming in. We were sat at a high top, which seemed to be the only indoor option for a party of two other than the bar. Not a big deal, but I do prefer a normal table. We're huge foodies, probably because we just love to eat, so we ordered a lot. First and foremost, don't come here expecting a ton of basic / classic Italian foods. I believe the menu is updated regularly and the dishes are creative. Not creative in the sense that it's really 'out there', hipster BS, but just not regular old spaghetti and meat balls or fettuccini alfredo. To start, we ordered the nduja, salami, meatballs, and spicy chickpeas. I don't have a baseline for nduja, so I think it would be unfair for me to review it. You could tell the salami was a good quality meat, but man oh man was it the fattiest salami I've ever had. That, coupled with the fact that it was kind of bland, made it unenjoyable. The chickpeas were great, spiced well, and the meatballs packed a lot of flavor. I'd order those two again. For my entre, I got the spicy seafood spaghetti and my partner got the gnocchi with gluten-free pasta. We also got a side salad, brussels sprouts, and roasted potatoes. The salad was fine, nothing special, but the balsamic on it was very tasty. The brussels sprouts were good, although just barely cooked enough. If they'd been cooked any less, I wouldn't have liked them, but I'd order them again. The potatoes seemed less roasted and more boiled with a quick broil afterward, but maybe I'm wrong about that. I wasn't a fan and I love potatoes. They just tasted like sink water and were super bland. We found ourselves having to salt almost everything except for the chickpeas, meatballs, and spaghetti. But they were tasty when we did salt them. The sea food spaghetti was really good and I'd get it again for sure. The sauce had a great depth of flavor. I asked for extra spicy and they accommodated. My partner enjoyed her gluten-free dish, the noodles were kind of like flat rice noodles you'd find at a Thai place, but they were really good as well. Overall, the experience was solid. Did it meet the hype and is it one of the best Italian places I'd ever been to? No...but I'd definitely visit it again and recommend it to others as a good restaurant to visit. It's creative, tasty, and fun. Beyond that, the prices were wildly reasonable. What would you expect all of that to be? $100? $150? Nope, $78 excluding tip. The only thing we really could openly complain about was the service. Our server knew her stuff and was nice, but there were periods of time where we looked around for her after sitting for way too long. The food came out quickly, but at the end of our meal, my partner wanted a desert, which is rare, and we ended up skipping this because it took so long just for our server to come back to our table. To be fair, it seemed like she was covering every table inside solo, but it was toward the end of the night and parties had left already. Other than that, I'd definitely check this place out and we'll be back!