Raise your hand if you’ve heard of this brand new restaurant before reading the title of this review. Odds are you haven’t and you really should fix that.

Walking into the restaurant for the first time my friend and I were greeted warmly by the owner, Craig Solomon, and shown to our table. The restaurant is spacious, very well lit (a restaurant that wants to let me see my food), and stylishly designed with a clean take on classical Italian motifs.

As we were seated, the waitress brought us a basket of delicious, home-made crispy, baked, Parmesan crusted bread. Our meal began with a selection of soups, a classic tomato garlic soup and a zucchini with mint soup that while good on their own, became sublime as vehicles for the bread.

After the soups we got a couple appetizers, risotto poppers and tuna tostadas. The fried risotto and wild mushroom balls served with an oregano mayonnaise sauce were extremely rich and buttery – and as someone who likes mushrooms, I loved them, but they are certainly not for everyone. The tuna was perfectly pan seared and served with cucumber and avocado on a crunchy tostada and topped with an excellent chipotle aioli.

Our appetizers were followed by four mains: pesto pizza with roasted tomatoes, striped bass, feta and spinach stuffed flounder, and cappelletti with fresh mozzarella. Pesto pizza is a tricky thing, it’s often dry, overly salty, or tastes only of garlic, but none of those problems plague this pizza. This is a truly delicious pizza, moist and flavorful. One thing that I was thrilled not to find on the menu was sushi. There is a bit of an epidemic in kosher dining that all restaurants, from pizza stores to steakhouses must have sushi! Craig, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, and trained with Bobby Flay for 2 years, takes his fish dishes in a more elegant and creative direction. The striped bass is seared and served with it’s crispy skin still attached. It is served sitting regally atop a bed of cilantro lime rice and mixed vegetables. Both the presentation and taste were spectacular. The flounder, stuffed with spinach and feta cheese, was quite possibly the first feta cheese dish I have ever enjoyed, since it managed not to be too salty. The homemade cappelletti pasta was served with mozzarella, made in house, that had an outstandingly soft texture, though the sauce it was served with was a bit standard given how flavorful everything else was.

Up until this point the meal was very very good, great even, but dessert is what really put the meal over the edge. It started with an out of this world flying saucer, or ice cream sandwich, made with home made cinnamon ice cream, on a freshly baked chocolate oatmeal cookie topped with a delicious caramel sauce. This was followed by a flourless chocolate cake, one of many gluten free options on the menu, that was as rich as you could possibly hope for. Then came the highlight of the meal, the autumn carrot cake. This cake, teeming with chunks of carrot, was topped with a super rich cream cheese frosting garnished with candied lemon and orange zest. It is an absolute must have.

Ariel’s restaurant may be a bit out of the way – it’s in Englewood – and a bit under the radar, but don’t let those things keep you from checking out one of the finest and most affordable (dishes range between $15-$20) dairy restaurants around today.

Click Here for the Ariel’s Restaurant listing