Il San Lorenzo is a larger place made up of several rooms.  Lots of modern art is on the walls and music plays in the background.  White tableclothes and napkins add to the brightness of the room which eliminates any chance of being cozy.  The menu contains one tasting menu as well as lots of a la carte items.  Their specialty is seafood and a bar with iced seafood greets you at the entry.   Service people speak good English but are arrogant and aloof.  After the first set of rapid fire courses they seemed to forget we were there.  Pacing was way off with plates being picked up prematurely and then the immediate arrival of the next course.  They really had no sense of timing.  Some of the food was really good but the setting was too uncomfortable to make the meal enjoyable.  They also tried the old scam used in tacky places on foreign tourists where the waiter who leaves the bill lets you know that no service charge was included.  This put the final nail in this place’s coffin, in my book.  A nice looking place but I couldn’t recommend going.

 

I started the evening with a martini that was okay but came with a lemon garnish rather than the requested olive.

 

Tables are set with house made hazelnut breadsticks.  They are crispy and nice but the hazelnut is a very mild taste.

 

The menu includes a listing of waters but we were simply asked whether we preferred still or sparkling.

 

An amuse bouche  of orange rice, cheese and salami fried into a ball.  It had a nice crisp exterior and a chewy, creamy inside.  It was served with a mustard sauce.

 

The bread basket contained a number of types of bread and they are listed in the menu.  None were outstanding and many seemed dry.

 

Red shrimp carpaccio was served with extra virgin olive oil and basil sprouts.  It was great and nicely seasoned.  It was an excellent rendition of this dish.

 

Deep fried baby calamari were served with mint flavored zucchini tempura.  They were lightly battered and not greasy.  Small dots of sauce were on the plate but had little flavor.  The calamari was nicely tender and crisp and the zucchini was outstanding.  A really good plate.

 

Spaghetti Vonsole was a special that night and it contained clams with the spaghetti.  The medium-sized clams were in the shell around the pile of spaghetti and smaller ones were mixed inside.  The pasta was cooked perfectly and the simple sauce had a hint of spiciness.  The clams only had a nice flavor, no strong essence.  It all worked well to yield an excellent dish.

 

Grilled filet of scorpion fish was served with a sauce of baby yellow tomatoes, Gaeta olives and caper leaves.   The tomatoes appeared to be the red variety rather than yellow listed in the menu, that evening.  The large flake fish was moist and worked well with the tasty sauce.  Olives and tomatoes were the dominant tastes in the dish.

 

The waiter recommended choosing “Sua Maestá O’ Baba, servito caldo caramellato con crema alla vecchia maniera, amarene e pistacchi” for dessert.  The babas were properly rum soaked and served alongside a slice of some brioche bread that had also been drizzled with something sweet.  A dollop of custard may have contained the caramel.  It was topped with 3 Amarena cherries.  It felt like an odd collection of okay things, none really reaching even good status.  It was an bizarre choice knowing that the final treats for the meal would include the same custard topped with a cherry.

 

We enjoyed a glass of grappa more than the final treats that included a chocolate candy with a fudgy center and crispy flakey pastry filled with some kind of goo.  None were great.