Every Wednesday, 6:30pm – Mancini Modern Italian, 401 E. Las Olas Blvd. #150, Fort Lauderdale

Mancini Modern Italian is located on the emerging west end of the downtown business district of Las Olas Boulevard, in the Bank of American Building. Mancini Modern Italian is a new restaurant by restaurateur Jack Mancini. The restaurant is full of warm wood and soft lighting make the feeling very relaxing and comforting. Mancini Modern Italian offers a hands-on mozzarella making experience every Wednesday for $30.

Executive Chef Claudio Sandri was the one to introduce us to art of making Mozzarella cheese. We started the evening with a glass of champagne and putting on gloves. Executive Chef Claudio instructed us to crumble the milk curds into the hot salted water. Claudio explained the process of making cheese. The curds are melted in the hot water once they are melted we pulled and kneeded the cheese into a huge ball of fresh warm and very delicious mozzarella. They served our cheese with heirloom tomatos and pesto with toasted bread and amazing bread sticks.

After we sampled our cheese, we decided to stay for dinner. We ordered the Chef’s sampling, not on the menu but since we could not decide what we wanted, our waiter suggested a sampling menu. We started with the Lobster Crudo – raw lobster served with baby arugula, lemon olive oil, tomalley vinaigrette. Next we sampled Tuna Crudo served with fennel, frisee, capers, anchovy-garlic vinaigrette, was one of my favorites. The saltiness of the capers and the fresh tuna were amazing flavors. Lastly we sampled Red Snapper marinated citrus segments, celery, herb pistou, chili-lime vinaigrette, the citrus segments and the Red Snapper along with the celery crunchiness was a great unexpected combination of flavors.

Next in classic Italian style we moved on a trio of Pastas. Starting with Paccheria alla Bolognese served with veal, pork and beef with tomato. The trio of meats added depth of flavor and highlighted the fresh pasta noddles. We moved on the Mezzalune similiar to a ravoli with Maine lobster, tomato tartar, tarragon, capers, shallots, lobster consomme. The Ravoli is delicate and the lobster in the ravoli was wonderful. The last pasta was the Pappardelle served with rabbit sugo, truffle espuma was full flavored with light truffle balanced the richness of the rabbit sugo.

Lastly, we could not skip dessert. Bomboloni Italian – Italian beignets served with sweet espresso panna cotta. The beignets were sugar coated and warm and very yummy. The panna cotta added a little sharpness to the warm beignets and the combination was an incredible finish to a wonderful meal.