Restaurant Review: Filini Bar and Resturant
In the last few years we have noticed a great change in hotel dining – the emergence of simply world class dining options as part of the hotel experience. Sure, hotels have offered dining options to their guests since the beginning of time, but we are now at a point where visitors are going out of their way to visit restaurants in hotels, even if it is not the hotel they are staying at. This is exactly the case with Filini, located in the Radisson Blu in Hamburg, Germany. (Read our hotel review HERE.)
Offering a vast collection of the best Italian offerings you would imagine, Filini offers it’s guest a truly special dining experience whether they are staying at the hotel or not. Rarely would we go out of our way to visit a hotel restaurant, but we would be back at Filini in a heartbeat if we had half the chance. Elegantly themed, Filini offers an authentic feel many Italian restaurants fail to capture.
Nothing over the top, nothing cliche, they let the food do the talking. As with many cuisines, the best way to have an Italian meal is to share everything. We ordered an assortment of appetizers to go along with paired wine suggestions and the freshest of bread and pure, virgin olive oil, straight from Italy.
Filini is constantly whipping up fun and unique drink offerings to pair with some of their seasonal dishes so take a chance and order whatever special cocktail they are offering as you are bound to be pleasantly surprised.
When it comes to the food, we simply couldn’t find anything that wasn’t out of this world, and believe us we tried. We ordered all of the small appetizers, an assortment of starters and the most tasty looking main dishes. The only problem we had was deciding what was the best. The steak was fresh and moist, the seafood perfectly seasoned, and all the sides were way more than just there to compliment the meal. When you want to have a true dining experience, the most important thing besides the food, is to have a wait staff who truly knows what they are talking about and can help guide your through your meal, all the way from pre dinner drinks through dessert.
We were shocked at how much our waitress knew about the Italian food they offered as well as what paired best with what, which dishes we should all share, and much of the history of the dishes, Italy in general and a deep knowledge of all the wine, beer and spirits that were recommended.
If you are really looking for an experience to complement your already stellar meal, take the time to try some of their in house grappa, an Italian brandy based liquor which comes in many shapes and sizes. Filini offers a wide variety of grappa to taste, and the knowledge to help it compliment your meal perfectly. We left completely satisfied but not uncomfortable, a big concern when the food was as good as it was. From start to finish, one of the best meals we have had in Europe and better than any Italian food we had in Italy this winter – can’t beat that!
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.H