I just moved to the fabulous capital city of Utah, Salt Lake City and I am craving a nice Italian meal. I spent the past few days moving into my beautiful new home with my husband and we deserve a nice sit-down Italian meal. I am dreaming of house made pastas, maybe a steak and some great wine. I know now what I want and what I don’t want. From here, I am going to explore the options around SLC so that I can compare and make a choice that best fits my needs.

I start out my search by using good old fashioned, google. Google is useful because it gives a list sorted by location and reviews, but it also has websites that contain things such as, “Best of SLC: Italian Restaurants”. I quickly narrow down my results by seeing photos of the restaurants themselves and the food they offer. I know I don’t want somewhere like ‘Buca di Beppo’ or ‘Olive Garden’ because they are chain restaurants. I can also cross of ‘Osteria Amore’ and ‘Eva’ because while they are cute and cozy, I am looking for something that WOWS me. That’s when I see ‘Veneto’ and I know that I’ve hit my mark. I want a place that really welcomes me to SLC with an incredible array of out of this world food and a just as exquisite wine list. I quickly go to their reviews on Google and then when that passes my high standards, I hop over to Instagram. I want to see the photos that the restaurant posts so I can see their caliber of food, but I also want to see their tagged photos. Do the patrons look like they’re having an incredible meal? Do they look comfortable in the restaurant or is it too stuffy? All of them look happy and I decide that Veneto is for us!

While I know that what I want for this meal is a little too fancy for a lot of people, it is what we wanted for our welcome to SLC meal. Through my search I saw places that I could order from on a Tuesday night when I don’t want to make dinner or when I want to have a more causal night with friends before we go have drinks at The Sun Trapp. A positive thing about the internet is all the ways to find what you want. There are so many publications that put out new restaurant lists so it’s easy to stay up to date on what is happening in the SLC food scene.

Dinner was unreal. We did the Chef’s Tasting Menu with wine pairings. Every bite was so perfectly cooked and full of flavor. The chef came out and described each course in detail. The service was top notch and the bartender sent over Espresso Martinis to end our meal. I could not rave higher about the evening.

Our dinner has now come and went, and we are in a food coma at home. We are both glowing with happiness and this meal has made us feel even more hopeful and happy about our move to SLC. We both share photos from our dinner on social media. We write a stellar review for google. We text local friends to tell them that they absolutely must visit Veneto.