The Andiamo Restaurant Group has 11 locations throughout the Metro Detroit area, all of which vary in menu and décor. Andiamo Detroit Riverfront is located in downtown Detroit in the city’s landmark Renaissance Center. The restaurant is just off the center’s Wintergarden atrium. The restaurant is mainly a venue for high-powered business lunches and romantic dinners. It provides a sleek and stylish dining experience, but its main attribute is great food.
Atmosphere
Andiamo Detroit Riverfront has a prime location along the waterfront of the Detroit River. In the warmer months, it even has an outside patio. The space inside, however, is curiously subdivided with a large section near the entrance devoted to the lounge, which has a dance floor, a tolerance for cigars and pipes, marble floors and a “L”-shaped bar. It is partitioned off from the narrow dining room beyond, making the space confusing to navigate. The odd-shaped space is rivaled only by the odder-shaped, over-head lighting fixtures, set off from the dark ceilings through texture and contrast.
The dining room is decorated in dark earth tones, which sets off the white tablecloths on the tables and black padded chairs. The décor is elegant and innovative with brick-hued columns, earth-toned drapes and large windows overlooking the river. During the lunch rush, the seating can be crowded. In fact, the large, round tables are used often for business lunches and can easily overwhelm the narrow, two-person tables that are placed just scant inches apart from each other. High-top bar tables in the spacious lounge are sometimes utilized for the lunch seating as well. While the high chairs are somewhat precarious and leave little room to stow a purse or briefcase, there is more breathing room between the tables.
Food
The menu is northern Italian and presented by Chef Edward L. Bailey. In addition to daily specials, the menu consists of salads, panini, pasta, chicken, veal, seafood and beef dishes. The dinner menu also includes several risotto dishes.
The Italian bread was suitably warm and tasty, and the side Andiamo salad was fresh; but the real highlight leading into the main course was the soup of the day: Butternut Squash Bisque. The soup is poured from a cream pitcher over pumpkin seed kernels, which served as a pleasing contrast to the creamy, perfectly-pureed soup. Rather than resting on the sweetness of the squash, the flavor of the soup was rich and savory.
The open-faced crab-cake sandwich was served on Challah bread, an interesting and creative twist on the dish. Unfortunately, the crab cake itself crumbled and the bread absorbed the Remoulade sauce, making it impossible to obtain a cohesive sandwich bite.
The daily pasta special was ravioli with shrimp and sausage in a Cajun Alfredo sauce and was served in an enormous bowl. The shrimp were plentiful, large and shelled; the sausage was spicy; and the sauce was rich and nuanced.
Service
Reservations are strongly suggested by the hostess staff, even during off times. While the restaurant itself was empty when we arrived, we were sat at a high-top in the lounge rather than in the main dining room.
The wait staff is pleasant, unobtrusive and professional.
