There aren't many restaurants that would lure me to Westminster, but Paradiso Ristorante is one of them.
Food tastes authentically Italian here. Not cookie-cutter Italian-American.
Salvatore and June Romeo have owned Paradiso since 1992, but moved the restaurant across the street to a renovated Sherwood Distillery building last June.
In the small dining room, the walls, trim and exposed ceiling are painted the deepest shade of green. Brass candle lamps with green shades provide intimate lighting at the cherrywood tables and wide upholstered booths in the room. There's nothing Mediterranean about the decor. Its handsome, polished look would work for an upscale steak house or seafood restaurant.
But if the room doesn't scream Italian, the food certainly does. One of our favorites, the house antipasto, is a good illustration.
There was nothing dramatic or overdone about this plate. It wasn't even a huge serving. It was memorable because it used the best ingredients: wedges of creamy fresh mozzarella and sharp imported provolone, rolls of lean prosciutto and thick circles of decadent salami. A salad of fresh baby greens was at the center of the plate, with artichoke hearts, house roasted eggplant and peppers, and marinated mushrooms radiating out in a circle.
A shrimp appetizer in garlic lemon sauce was just as good. The four large shrimp were perfectly cooked, but it was the buttery sauce that really made this dish. We all reached for a piece of bread to mop up what was left on the plate.
Dinners come with such a big salad, you may want to forgo appetizers. The lettuce may be iceberg, but the vinaigrette with chunks of Gorgonzola turns it into something special.
I couldn't decide among the dozen or so pasta dishes on the menu. When our able, agreeable waiter suggested the angel hair pasta with fresh tomato sauce, I was skeptical. Exactly what kind of a sauce would winter tomatoes make? The answer here, I was happy to find out, was a very fine one, blended with capers, chopped Italian parsley and melting cubes of fresh mozzarella.
Tender chicken breasts sauteed in cognac wine sauce with mushrooms and spinach was a special when we visited. Fortunately, the same sauce tops a veal dish on the regular menu. It's worth seeking out for its delectable flavor -- rich but somehow light at the same time.
Wine gave some verve to the tomato sauce for the linguini alla Posillipo, a frutti di mare dish. The seafood was all the finest quality, cooked just right -- firm, large shrimp, the tiniest clams and mussels and rings of tender calamari.
The only mediocre thing about our meal was a cup of soup with chicken, spinach and baby ravioli. That's a pretty impressive score.
For dessert, triple chocolate mousse cake and creamy lemon sorbet in a frozen lemon shell are worth a try if you're looking for decadence or virtue, respectively.
Somewhere in between is a lovely tartufo, a ball of soft chocolate ice cream rolled in nuts and cocoa. It has an air of elegant simplicity, just like Paradiso Ristorante.
Paradiso Ristorante
20 Distillery Drive,
Westminster
410-876-1421
Hours: Open Monday to Saturday for lunch; daily for dinner
Credit cards: All major cards
Prices: Appetizers, $3-$8; entrees, $8.50-$18
Food: ***1/2
Service: ***1/2
Atmosphere: ***
Ratings system: Outstanding: ****; good ***; fair or uneven **; poor *
Pub Date: 03/18/99