A chilling time at Scornovacca’s

by Ben Frotscher

Since 1973, Scornovacca’s Ristorante has been located at 1930 S.E. 14th St. in Des Moines.

When my companion and I arrived, the restaurant was completelydeserted. There was silence in the dining area, except for somesounds of disagreement coming from the kitchen.

As I took in the environment I noticed that the restaurant waskept fairly chilly. I decided to keep my coat on for most of thehour or so that we were there. My companion and I were seatedwithin a few minutes and we quickly ordered onion rings as anappetizer. These were quite good.

Scornovacca’s had a wide variety of items on its menu, whichvaried from general appetizers to some rather expensive dinnersthat could fill anyone up quickly. Also, salads were available forthe person looking for a lighter meal or sandwiches that included achoice of french fries or onion rings.

I ordered the spaghetti and meatball dinner, which also camewith three slices of garlic bread and a side salad. I thought mymeal was pretty tasty and it came out of the kitchen quickly. Mycompanion ordered the three-piece chicken dinner, which also camewith garlic bread and a salad.

A few framed posters of places such as France and Italysurrounded the room, along with a couple televisions and arcadegames. These items made me wonder if this restaurant was trying toresemble an Italian restaurant or a sports bar. As for the overalllook of the dining area, it was fairly clean and presentable.However, the lack of decorations made the restaurant look bland.There was also music playing in the background, but it wasn’tItalian.

Throughout my time at Scornovacca’s, the service was a littleslow. Few people occupied the restaurant, so there wasn’t anyexcuse for the lack of attention we received from our waiter.

Overall this experience at Scornovacca’s was good. I liked thefood, but probably won’t be going back anytime soon.