Battuto Italian Kitchen

Don received an email recently inviting us to a grand opening of a new restaurant in North Dallas. We had planned a date night anyway, but didn't have any detailed plans yet. So that's what we decided to do. Heading to Plano around 6:00pm any evening takes a little patience. But once we made it through the traffic, we arrived at the restaurant. I was so excited!

 Battuto

You might be wondering why I would be so excited to go to Plano to a new restaurant where they were serving bites and samples of their food and free wine right?! Well, yes, free wine is exciting (if it's a good wine). But here's the thing-the owners of the restaurant are what made it so interesting and exciting.

Gene and Julie Gates, former morning show hosts on KVIL 103.7 Lite FM, are the owners of this new kitchen featuring Italian foods including handmade pastas and pizzas. These are the radio hosts I used to listen to when I would drive from Dallas to Fort Worth everyday to teach school. I LOVED them! And I was determined to meet them!

Here's Gene holding a bottle of wine that he served us. Julie was really busy with her guests.

Don says the Franciscan Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is always a good choice. It sells for about $20 a bottle. Winemaker notes state that this wine is "rich, round and full-bodied. It is layered with blackberry, cherry, dried plums, and a hint of cocoa. It has a generous weight on the palate and smooth mouth-filling tannins. The finish lingers with rich flavors of cassis and black cherry."

We had a great time and left after about 30 minutes of mingling with the guests! Our next destination, the DCC for dinner where we had a very interesting white wine!

More to come on that wine in the next post!