Tasting Menu

Chef Jonathon Sawyer's northern Italian-inspired Trentina lets you have it all. The Kickstarter-funded restaurant's $115, 13-course tasting menu (actually 26, if you count the fact that your dining partner's dishes are slightly different than your own) allows us to leave our indecisiveness about what to order at the door. Set in a tiny, modernized carriage house, the restaurant has us wowed from the attentive staff who used gold-plated scissors to cut open Sable Fish al Cartoccio to the sleek, eco-friendly bathrooms. We'd shell out the big bucks just for the Pasta Alla Chitarra (pictured), with chewy house-made noodles, local egg, foraged mushrooms and abalone, or the playful Beasts Roasted Over Embers, an Ohio-aged beef dish that features a glowing coal for aroma and a plate painted in demi-glace. To research recipes for the restaurant, executive chef Matt Danko traveled with Sawyer to northern Italy. "A lot of Trentina comes from our very best dining experiences," Danko says, "things that we really wanted to be able to showcase." 1903 Ford Drive, Cleveland, 216-421-2900, restauranttrentina.com