spaswinefood: IL Cortile Ristorante: A Paso Robles Gourmet Restaurant

We dropped by Il Cortile Ristorante 608 12 Street # 101, Paso Robles for lunch on August 10, 2011. Spaswinefood has heard great reports on this restaurant. Il Cortile is a casual, elegant restaurant, right off 101 in downtown Paso Robles.

Il Cortile Ristorante © Spaswinefood

Il Cortile offers both outside and inside seating. We chose inside seating.

Il Cortile Ristorante © Spaswinefood

We started with bread.

Il Cortile Ristorante © Spaswinefood

A glass of Belle Casel, Prosecco © Spaswinefood

Our wine choice was a Bele Casel Prosecco (see reviews on Cellartracker and Snooth). This is a great sparkling wine for the price.

Belle Casel, Prosecco Asolo Superiore, D.O.C.G., Il Cortile Ristorante © Spaswinefood

Il Cortile Ristorante © Spaswinefood

Our salad choice was Caprese.

Il Cortile Ristorante © Spaswinefood

Such a creative presentation © Spaswinefood

For entrées John chose a Scallop entrée and I ordered a Vegetarian Linguini.

Vegetarian Linguini and Scallops © Spaswinefood

Scallops © Spaswinefood

Vegetarian Linguini © Spaswinefood

Now for dessert we had Dolce di Cioccolato Fuso.

Dolce di Cioccolato Fuso © Spaswinefood

Earlier the waiter brought us Lemon Pie because of the wait.

I re-centered the picture because John ate the corner of the Lemon Pie

Given that we were the last customers for lunch, I asked if I could talk to Executive Chef Santos MacDonal. We got to chat briefly. It was great to talk with such a good chef while he worked. The owners of Il Cortile are Excutive Chef, Santos MacDonal and Managing Partner, Carole MacDonal.

Executive Chef Santos MacDonal making pasta

Our lunch was great. We look forward to returning soon. We did check out the dinner menu and it looks great. You can also check reviews at Tripadvisor, Yelp.