Palato Italian Kitchen and Lounge is an upscale restaurant that just opened at HALL Park Hotel in Frisco. Palato features a full exhibition-style kitchen, so you can watch chefs at work. And what they're doing is delicious.
What Makes This Special
Located at 3220 Internet Blvd, Palato is on the first floor of HALL Park Hotel, an Autograph Collection Hotel, the newly opened hotel in HALL Park. It is catty-corner to Janet Echelman’s public art installation, Butterfly Rest Stop, at Kaleidoscope Park in Frisco, and the hotel is across from The Star.
“Great thought went into every detail of the HALL Park Hotel, from the diverse art collection to the food and beverage offerings, and we look forward to welcoming both visitors to Frisco and locals to enjoy all the hotel and the adjacent park have to offer,” Craig Hall, chairman and founder of HALL Group, previously said.
With 224 rooms, the new hotel caters to both short-term and extended stays, with a focus on business travelers, event attendees and regional staycationers. At HALL Park Hotel, Palato is the culinary centerpiece.
Italian, Traditional But With A Spin
During our visit, we tried the burrata with rapini and crostini and the fried calamari. Both are appetizers you'd expect at an Italian restaurant, but Palato put its own spin on them.
The burrata was made with buffalo cow's milk and the calamari, served with fried lemon and fennel, comes with a spicy calabrian chili sauce — both of which were delicious. (We got extra lemon for the calamari, because you cannot have enough lemon for calamari.) Throughout the evening, we keep seeing twists on Italian favorites.
Must-Order Appetizer
Everything we had was delicious, but if you love bread, make sure you order the garlic pesto bread. The pesto is spread throughout the woven dough, so when it's baked, you can easily tear off flaky, pesto-rich pieces. Be sure to save some for the pasta course to dip in the sauce.
Pizza, Pasta And Main Courses
We ordered the meat-heavy macellaio (tomato, fior di latte, salame calabrese, pancetta and fennel sausage garlic) and the funghi (wild mushrooms, fontina val d'aosta, garlic and thyme). The macellaio was delicious, but we were not expecting the funghi to be as delicious — and pretty — as it was. The funghi was recommended, and we would do the same. Mushrooms can be overwhelming, but these were earthy, yet approachable. The pizzas are a good size — not large and small enough for one, but big enough to share with your date.
For pasta, we had the red-sauce paccheri (fried eggplant, tomato and basil ricotta salata) and the white-sauce mezzi rigatoni (wild mushroom, guanciale and panna pecorino). Both were delicious, but we especially liked the eggplant paccheri.
And for the main, we had the roasted Berkshire pork collar, a play on iconic pork and pear dishes with quince, honey and colatura. The quince paired perfectly with the sweetness of the pork, which was further highlighted with the honey, and accented with the subtle saltiness of the colatura sauce.
We also ordered the catch of the day — salmon with blood oranges and olives. It was our favorite dish. Sometimes, restaurants cover, or even mask, the main with so much flavor that we can't taste the intrinsic flavor of the meat or fish. Here, that wasn't the case: all the additions, the blood orange and olives, accented and brought out different flavors in the salmon. This approach was seen throughout much of the menu, and it's something that we think makes the food at Palato so good.
A Lounge For Wine Lovers
As you'd expect from the HALL Group, the wine program is also terrific, and we got some wonderful pairings from Beverage Manager Eric Gomez, who patiently — and passionately — explained the wines and tried to find a barolo that not only complemented our meal but also pleased our palates. He most certainly did.
At night, Palato turns into a wine lounge. It's a lovely place to sit on at the bar with a HALL, a WALT or a BACA wine from Napa. We look forward to spring and summer to take advantage of wine-sipping on the patio.
Great Service
The service was also terrific, and Jannai Ward took tremendous care of us, helping to make our evening comfortable, special and delicious — also something you'd expect from the HALL Group. (We thank Palato and HALL Park Hotel for hosting and treating us.)
Things To Do Nearby
Palato is right in the heart of Frisco. After dinner, we headed over to Butterfly Rest Stop — a true night-time stunner and a great way to cap off a dinner date. Our dinner went late, so if you dine earlier, you can stroll through the HALL Park Sculpture Garden and head across the street to The Star.
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