Atmosphere | Service | Drinks | Apps | Soup & Salad | Mains | Dessert

Our third installment of the Buckhead Life Summer Dine around was Pricci. As we have been here so many times, we found that we ordered a fair amount from the specials menu.

Pricci is the Italian option within the Buckhead Life restaurant family. The quality that Pricci offers is that fresh food is flown in globally to have the freshest, best food which results in tasty and cravable meals.

The Pricci experience starts when you drive up for valet parking. There is not self-parking, unless you choose to park on the street nearby. There is a short walk up a concrete ramp past windows looking in on diners to an enclosed 'porch' and then through the main doors. The restaurant is wide open, you can see the entire dining room and bar area from the host stand. You are often greeted as you come through the door and there rarely is a wait at the host stand (assuming you arrive on time for your reservation.)

The inside has a mix of art deco columns, bar, and lighting but white tablecloths and dark wood chairs (or red booths.) The lighting for dinner is dim. The smell if the open kitchen is enticing and mouth watering. If you come on certain nights there may be live music in a corner of the bar. Due to being so open, noise carries. We asked for a quiet area, and were brought to one of the tables that one passes on the way in.

Similar to other Buckhead Life restaurants, there is an army of folk to help ensure your experience is exceptional. Our primary server was Patrick, who was so much fun to chat with, he was incredibly knowledgeable and offered a lot of fantastic suggestions. He went to Chef Jonah Jacobson with several of our questions, and even had the chef visit our table to explain how he made his specials. That made the foodie in me thrilled.

I started out trying The Mora, however it felt really astringent. Patrick was great about it and replaced it with something of his own creation. He chatted with me a bit about what I like and came back with a lychee mule that I loved. It was no surprise that Daniel ordered the smoky old fashioned, which he enjoyed.

We started with the Ricotta Alla Romana to split. I've noticed that whipped ricotta is a trend that has been going on for about a year now in the Atlanta area. We loved eating this fluffy ricotta with the bread that had tomato sauce on it. The pickled tomatoes were a great brightness to the dish, however the chicory was slightly slimy and had an odd squishy texture. We would order this again!

Daniel ordered Caesar salad, which Pricci offers a unique deconstructed version with bread crumbs rather than croutons and an actual anchovy. In the past they've also served it as a wedge of lettuce, but here it was served traditionally.

I opted to have the pea soup from the specials menu. It was Summer in a bowl, with perfect temperature, pea forward taste, but incredibly sweet and light.

Daniel ordered the Plin D'astice because he cannot turn down lobster. The fun thing is that the 'local chanterelle mushrooms' were hand harvested in North Georgia by Chef Jonah himself. When he came to our table he shared with us that one needs to be trained and licensed to do this, which his friend is. He joined his friend in June and pickled them so that they would last until August when we ate them. He even was generous enough to share his pickling process and ingredients with us.

I had a hard time picking my main. I learned from Patrick, our server, that the pastas can come in half portions, which I ended up doing. He suggested I try the funghi risotto and tortelli, as I have not had them before. I also tried the cacio peppe, something else I had not tried before. I'm partial to my own non-traditional cacio peppe, which includes butter, so I am always nervous ordering it at restaurants.

I will admit, that while I eat mushrooms I am not a huge fan nor know a lot about them. This risotto blew my mind with how good it was - the rice perfectly al dente - and how amazing the mushrooms were. Once again, Chef Jonah came to our table to explain what the mushrooms were and how he made them. The mushrooms used were maitaki, shitake, trumpet, and beech. He started by giving the first two a hard seer, then added in the second two. The moisture released from the second two ended up braising all of them to finish perfectly together.

The tortelli was heaven. From the joy that browned butter and sage brings, to the pesto. This is best had in the half portion, as it is really heavy due to the butter. However, if you don't get this to try, you are missing one of the best things Pricci has to offer.

The cacio peppe was good. It didn't have the richness mine has, due to being traditional (without butter.) Despite that it was wonderful. It would be great with chicken or steak.

We split the Nu Babba from the special menu for dessert. It was really interesting and felt like it could have gone through some more versions to improve it. The earl grey was present as an after taste and only if you are a) familiar with the taste (Daniel is not) and b) looking for it. The dried strawberries were very chewy - almost too much so. The cake portion was a bit dried out, so the sauce and whipped cream were really needed. The punch and flavor of the rum felt everywhere on the dish, and at times almost overpowered everything else.

Due to so much food, we did end up taking home a bit of each of the three pastas. They reheated wonderfully in the microwave, with a few minutes on 50% power.