Alta Strada Wellesley

I just had dinner at Alta Strada and it was the worst experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant! The food was very good but the service was so awful, I would never go back. The restaurant was not at capacity and my party of 3 had to wait 90 minutes for our dinner entrees (45 minutes for appetizers). They should have given us something complimentary but they did not. Very poor managment.

Overrated
Snooty
Expensive
In short, it fits Wellesley vibe perfectly.
The food is often under-​prepared or over-​cooked. Their $ 15 wine glasses are less than half full. The service is slow and ponderous.
Do not go unless you are
(a) a thirty-​something Wellesley mom who just dropped off her kids at the golf lesson
OR
(b) a fifty-​something Wellesley banker who needs his three martini lunch before heading back to swindling the rest of the country

We have had two very positive experiences at Alta Strada. The food is fresh (pasta is made in-​house), the menu has several appealing items, and we love the ambiance. The restaurant fits a lot of tables, but it does not compromise the patrons’ comfort. The staff is good — not particularly warm or friendly, but adequately knowledgeable and definitely attentive. We look forward to returning to Alta Strada.

Had to pull a star off. Was there today (Sunday) right after they opened and the place was just filthy. Bathroom gross top to bottom. 100% not cleaned from the night before. And just everywhere through the restaurant was dirty looking or broken. Sad.

A for atmosphere/​style/​coziness. But not impressed by the food. We got the green bean tapas and the ricotta tapas. The ricotta was bland and served with crostini that was WAY to oily to eat. I have actually never seen a crostini or croûton with that much grease. The beans were so-​so. Then we had butternut squash soup which was okay but a very small portion. The seeds kind of threw it off for me and overpowered the soup flavor.
Bar service was good but stools were VERY hard to sit in. LOW backs and no clearance under the bar to cross legs.
Would not go back here.

Dinner on a Saturday night — the place is hopping (and loud). Great wait staff, very attentive, and overall a very good experience.
Started with the Antipasti Table: Golden Beets (fantastic flavor, solid consistency), Chilled Calamari (Very nice, our favorite), and Spicy Green Beans (crunchy and good). I would say that you could probably order 2 Antipasti’s per person and have a meal out of it if you wanted. Decent proportions.
I have heard the pizza is excellent (they also serve all day for lunch at the counter downstairs) but we chose Secondi courses. The local Swordfish with gigante beans (basically giant lima beans) was wonderful, great flavor. The Linguini Amatriciana with pancetta was tasty, but be warned that it is a bit «spicy» with pepper flakes (you may be able to request them without them). The Fedelini with tiny clams is good, but could use more clams and a the sauce was sparse. One of the more fun items was the Spicy Chitarra (literally guitar-​string pasta) with lobster and shrimp.
Drinks menu and by-​the-​glass wine selection is good, and the bread and olive oil is awesome. It was a busy night and it took about 20 minutes for the second drink order to come, but overall the service was very good. I’d go back and probably next time try for lunch.

Solid local place for a nice night out. Its loud though, so dont count on deep conversation. And a little $$$ for what you get but nice for a date night or girls night.
The waiter made very nice wine suggestions. We split the fig and proscuitto crositini plate to start. There was enough proscuitto on the plate to feed a small town! I had the tagliatelle bolognese and my friend at the linguini with clams. The homemade pasta is spot on, but next time I will ask them to cook mine for maybe another 30 seconds. It was perfectly al dente, but I like mine a little bit softer.

Well, it’s not good. My husband and I ate here one night last summer and we had drinks and pizza. I remember the food being pretty good so when I was looking for a close restaurant to take my family on Christmas Eve, I thought this would be a good choice.
The wine that our server recommended was opposite from what I explained I was looking for. That’s not really the issue though. My kids each ordered the ravioli that was just ok. I ordered the tagliatelle bolognese and it was good, oily but good. My husband ordered the scallops. This dish came out and filled out table with a rotten stench that immediately put an end to all eating. It was nasty, folks. I’m not sure what exactly happened but it was bad.
Our server took the plate away and we just asked for the bill. We won’t be back. We still had a good time and didn’t let this experience ruin our holiday evening. $ 175 for 2 drinks, 3 appetizers and 3 entrees is way too much to spend for this food though. Bummer.

Antipasti– ricotta was DELISH. The beets were yummy, and the Tagliatelle Alla Bolognese and Pappardelle with duck, dried cherries and rosemary were out of this world. Energy in the restaurant was fun and tables filled quickly.

Generally speaking it’s pretty good. As for appetizer, I recommend tuna, never try eggplant, so ridiculous flavor, pasta is plenty, and taste good, just a little bit like chew mein. Salmon is tender, Tarte is so big like a brick, but taste mellow, but defiantly a bit too sweet, but after all it’s not Europa.

Nice pedestrian Italian food in Wellesly. We had some pretty good dishes and some poor dishes. Pricey for what you get. Our least favorite place we ate at on our trip.

So it’s the holiday season and the Central St. Strip in Wellesley is dressed up. I went strolling for a place to eat dinner and this seemed to be the best, most lively spot.
I actually liked sitting at the counter near the kitchen, where I could see all the activity. Pork chop was delicious and comes with a mix of brussels (which were yummy) and butternut squash studded with pancetta (basically, bacon bits). I liked it. There were some A+ people next to me. I got to try an app from the kitchen: toast with seafood: it was delicious. It should definitely go on the menu – would come back for that.
You get a huge hunk of bread with plain olive oil. To kick things up, ask for some red pepper flakes to season the olive oil.
Liked this place, but would only go back if I happened to be passing through the Wellesley area.

Being the procrastinators that we are, of course we didn’t have Easter Brunch plans anywhere.
We decided to wait a little while and grab lunch around 11:30, bypassing the idea of sweet French toast and greasy egg specials. (I would have been happy to wait til 1PM for a table at Bronwyn, but the bf started to get «hangry».)
So, we searched Unilocal and found Alta Strada — dinner reviews seemed favorable, so why not try it out for lunch?
We were promptly greeted by a waiting host as soon as we entered the restaurant at 11:15AM. The seating area was quite empty so we requested a seat in a corner booth. Unfortunately, it was reserved for an elderly couple who came in every weekend for brunch, so we chose a corner table instead. (Props to management for maintaining customer loyalty!)
Sustained for 15 minutes by water and in-​house baked bread with olive oil, we were served our order of crispy veal meatballs and immediately dug in. The tomato basil sauce that the meatballs sat on top of was quite flavorful, and complemented the spices in the meatballs. The extra Parmesan cheese in the sauce added another layer of flavor.
Another 15 minutes passed and we were served our entrees: the bf had the arugula prosciutto pizza and I devoured the grilled salmon and spinach salad. The pizza was cooked just right — crispy and not burnt at all. My salmon was prepared medium rare (to my liking), and topped with a caper butter.
Our check came soon after we requested it, and we were in and out within an hour. We never felt rushed and servers were quite attentive (my water glass was never empty). While I’m not certain what service and food quality is like during the evening, I do have to say that weekend lunch service is decent.
Next up is dinner!