Tarantini

I LOVE that the owner was at the front and greeted me when I came in. She was so sweet and friendly. It really means a lot to me that the owner cares so much about their business and customers.
The calamari appetizer is by far the BEST I HAVE EVER HAD! Seriously. Just try it. The bread is not your typical Italian restaurant lame breadstick. It is true fresh baked bread. As a bread lover it’s refreshing to see a restaurant care about the free bread they provide for a change.
For the entrée I had the veal picatta which was truly spectacular. This is next level dining.
And finally dessert. The cheesecake was perfect. I love that they put caramel sauce on top instead of strawberry sauce.
Tarantini has a wonderful atmosphere, friendly attentive staff, and AMAZING food. This is truly one of the Triangle’s best restaurants.

Love. The sausage and broccolini appetizer with the rigatoni a la vodka is enough to make you cry tears of joy. Then end the night with the Carmel lava cake. You go home feeling like a new person.

the food is delicious. everything comes in a good portion size and very well done. the foccacia is amazing and crispy. the shrimp risotto is perfect too. it’s now one of my favorites.

Make sure you have reservation on weekend. Nice surprise when we arrived, we’re not expecting
such an elegant little establishment. Had to sit at bar but still excellent service and large counter top with comphy padded bar stools. Greek salad was wonderful as were pastas ordered. Bolognese, meatballs, Pasta Rustica”, all excellent. No complaints, everything was delightful.

So my review still stands, that they have great pizza! I wanted to add that we did end up eating in one night and tried their pasta dishes which were AMAZING, and so was the bread they serve ahead of the meal. I had a glass of Pinot Grigio which was delicious. The mushroom ravioli was great, the sauce was superb! My hubby got the salmon pasta. Caffe Luna in Raleigh has the best salmon pasta, and this didn’t quite live up to that. The salmon was overcooked but the sauce and everything else we got was amazing!

For the Chapel Hill area, this is the best Italian restaurant around. It’s quaint and quiet and feels miles away from the hustle and bustle of Franklin Street. Staff is very friendly and accommodating, and everyone I’ve ever gone there with loves the food. Serves excellent pizza, pasta bolognese, eggplant and chicken parm, lasagna, calamari, veal, etc. Desserts are exquisite, and Tarantini also makes pasta from scratch, which is helpful for the gluten-​free.

Love the ambiance, love the food, love the employees. I make it a point to visit Tarantini whenever I travel to Chapel Hill. I am impressed that I am remembered when I go in; I feel as though I am family!

Ordered a pizza to go… Not bad for this area, and I will definitely return to try other dishes. Service was warm and friendly. My biggest complaint is what many places identify as sausage. This sliced product has no flavor and it’s a telltale sign of poor quality ingredients.
I’ve realized that since this is not New York City or San Francisco, that I cannot judge so harshly.

First off, the service was excellent (thanks Nick!). Not so good: the veal Marsala was extremely rich, the sauce was cloying, and the potatoes served with the dish were under-​seasoned. The chicken scarpariello was very well done and tasty– the sausage was delicious, and the chicken breast was cooked perfectly. The mushroom ravioli was divine. Rich (but not overpowering) and luscious, the cream sauce and mushrooms were delicious, and the ravioli tasted homemade.

This place is great. It has a nice ambience, delicious food, great service and fabulous desserts. I could eat the bread alone for dinner. The sauces are delicious, and this place is suitable for vegetarians. Make the drive. It’s totally worth it!

Great place. Good atmosphere. Solid menu. Wonderful and attentive owners and staff. Pizza is excellent and make sure you try their focaccia made on premises. Good local spot on a Thursday-​Saturday night. If you want something not on the menu ask. We live in governors club and thank our lucky stars this place is right across the road.

This place has consistently great Italian food and my husband and I are pretty picky. It’s really all about the sauce when it comes to cooking great Italian basics and Tarantini has it. The pizza is excellent, pasta dishes great and chicken and veal amazing. Only reason I give it ⁴⁄₅ stars is on several occasions I thought the pasta portions for the more expensive pasta dishes were very small and I am a petit 5’3″, 110 lb. woman. I ate my entire entrée after sharing an appetizer and I was still very hungry. Hmmm. It was delicious though.

Lovely restaurant with a varied Italian menu. We waited about twenty minutes for a table on a Friday night. We started with a calamari appetizer with a spicy marinara. It was good but slightly thickly cut for my taste. I had the gnocchi and sautéed spinach. Gnocchi was delicious but definitely for a cheese lover and very hearty. The sautéed spinach, tho slightly oily, had a nice garlicky and smokey taste to it. Yummy! Hubby had Scarpariello with chicken and sausage over penne sauce with a white wine sauce which he enjoyed. Overall, it was an interesting, tasty menu and our waiter Francisco was attentive. We will be back.

Love this place! It’s very crowded and it’s not cheap but well worth a trip here. We had delectable meals with some interesting flavor combinations but also the tried and true standby lasagna dish was yummy. It was a special occasions so we splurged on appetizers wine and dessert and all were to, our liking. Not a place for kids but a good upscale date night location. We will be back.

I love this place so much. I went here with a group four on a Sunday evening. We were seated promptly and everything about our service was great and wonderful.
We ordered the bruschetta as an appetizer and it may just be the best I have ever had anywhere. For sure the best I have had in my 10 years of living in the triangle. They pile the toppings into the bread so you get a lot. There were four pieces total and while I technically wanted to eat all four of them, one was more than enough given the amount of toppings. Everyone commented on how fresh the tomatoes tasted and the feta was just the best!
I had the gnocchi for an entrée and it too was perfect in every way. I found the portion size to be very good. I could have eaten it all and felt pretty good about myself. I left some though because I knew I wanted dessert. The gnocchi comes in a wine sauce with cheese melted on top. It is very different from how I am used to eating it. I have never had gnocchi served in a red sauce before. So this was different but in a good way! The pasta required almost no chewing. It just melted in my mouth.
Three of us got the cheesecake for dessert. It’s a specialty there, and the recipe belongs to the chef. It is a ricotta-​based cheesecake. I don’t eat a lot of cheesecake so that didn’t have much meaning to me, but I wanted to try it. It was also perfect. It was soft and moist and also very rich! I highly recommend it. Three people could share one slice easily (we all took some of your own slices home for later).
I found the service to be wonderful. Our server was able to answer all our questions and help us with the menu. None of us had been there before and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. I am looking forward to a return trip!

I was very underwhelmed by this restaurant and I am actually surprised by the high number of stars this place received. When we first arrived they had us wait to be seated. We waited a good ten+ minutes to be finally seated. They led us into a fairly empty restaurant so I’m not sure what the delay was. Someone came in before us and was seated right away. And yes we had reservations.
I’m not sure if our waitress was just not great or just having a bad day but she basically just came up to our table and said — are you ready to order? I had to ask for the specials which I thought was really odd. She kind of blew through them. We waited a long time for our food and I saw tables next to us getting frustrated because their waitress hadn’t come to take their orders yet.
We finally got our food which was just ok. I ordered the broccoli rabe ravioli which was super oily and lacked any cheese or salt. Everyone else in my party liked their food ok but not something we would come back for.
We wanted to get dessert and our waitress was just stopped by to say– check? We had to say no actually we want to order more. She forgot to put our ice cream on the bill. Most ppl would just forget about the one scoop we had but she stopped by to say she needed our card again to charge us. It’s fine but was annoying. Again I don’t know if we just got a bad waitress or what but I’m pretty sure we won’t be back.

Did I go to a different restaurant as the other reviewers? My partner and I were so excited for this place, craving some great Italian after watching Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon eat their way through Italy. Trusting Unilocalers with all my might, I advocated to visit this place.
Sadly, we arrived to a pretty nice, but not charming, Tarantini. We ordered some calamari to go along with the bread. I ordered the capellini. My partner got the safe bet, Penne alla vodka, mostly because the menu items were bland. Yes, the meal was as exciting as I just described.
Our meal was fine, exactly what you’d find in a chain Italian restaurant. Will I come back here again? No. I’ll probably spend a bit less money at IP3 for a much better meal.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE everything about this restaurant. The owners are amazing, the food is delicious, the decoration is beautiful I could go on and on about this place.
If you are looking for great Italian food you are in a right place. I highly recommend this place!!!

I’ve been to this restaurant a few times, and it really is one of the best italian restaurants I’ve ever been to.
The ambiance is a pleasant mix of casual and elegant, so you won’t feel out of place in a shirt of a sports jacket.
They being out fresh, complementary focaccia bread in the beginning, complete with olive oil.
For my main course I’ve tried their gnocchi and their lasagna. The lasagna is good, but the gnocchi is nothing short of spectacular, this pillowy potato-​based pasta will melt in your mouth.
The pizza is also very good, and I would recommend their bianca pizza. I honestly wasn’t expecting to like it very much, as it didn’t have any tomato sauce, but it’s layers of creamy ricotta cheese makes up for any lack of tomatoes.

I came here for date night with my boyfriend and had a pretty good experience. The atmosphere is nice (but we were the only young people) with dim lighting, candles on the tables, and a nice selection of wines. The booths are cosy and even though the restaurant is small, service is really attentive and there is an intimate and romantic feeling at the place.
Our waitress was a little absent-​minded (she came by to ask us how we were doing twice before kind of realizing she never took our order) but the hostess was extremely nice and noticed and took our order. She even brought us two glasses of champagne on the house (but then took them away after realizing we weren’t 21, but the gesture was extremely nice).
The bread they brought us before our meal was delicious. It’s soft and fresh and hot with fresh herbs sprinkled on top. The Caesar salad was also very delicious — the cheese was mild but flavorful and the lettuce fresh and crisp and evenly covered with just enough dressing.
I ordered mushroom ravioli and I loved it. The sauce was rich and creamy and I really liked that they didn’t give me a ton of ravioli because it’s a filling pasta and tonight was possibly the first time I finished my food at an Italian restaurant. The mushroom filling is earthy and delicious and the mushrooms in the sauce were tender as well.
My boyfriend had the veal marsala and thought it was absolutely delicious. He liked the sauce and thought the meat was cooked perfectly.
Overall, terrific date spot — we’ll probably be back!