Rehearsal Dinner at Dante - A Little Bit About a Lot of Things A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

June 1, 2013 Rehearsal Dinner at Dante

We opted to go to Dante in the Royal Sonesta for our rehearsal dinner. Dante is owned by Dante de Magistris. He and his brothers also own and operate il Casale in Belmont. Our options were the private room downstairs but there was a food and beverage minimum, so we opted for the mezzanine, a small balcony upstairs (it ended up being a little tight, but hey, we’re family). We dealt with Samantha who was the large party coordinator (who is no longer with Dante)-she couldn’t have been nicer. We had a stationary cheese board at $18 per person and then a 3 course sit down menu. The tax, 18% gratuity and a 6% administration fee. The drinks were based on consumption-we chose 3 wines to offer, a red (’05 Montepulciano d’ abruzzo, ‘torre migliori, ‘cerulli spinozzi, Italia), a white (’10 verdicchio di matelica, colle stefano, marche, Italia), and a sparkling (nv prosecco, stellina di notte, veneto, Italia).

The cheese board came with a bread basket, honey and nuts. It was set up in the corner, a lovely spread.

For the dinner, it was $65/person. We started with the burrata salad-which is an Il Casale menu option, but the chef agreed to do it for this party. Buttery Mozzarella from Apulia, Sicilian oregano and pistachios. I love this dish, i had extra pistachios because they are just that good.

The second course was a a choice of the following: Tagliatelle Bolognese-another Il Casale menu option-the traditional recipe, again, one of my all time favorite dishes. A lot of brides (and brides to be) say that they don’t eat at their wedding or rehearsal dinner. Not this girl, this is all my favorite food!

We also offered two other dishes, “pollo” or the chicken dish was chicken scaloppini, marsala, garlic chives, chanterelles, black trumpets and spinach. The “nasello” or fish option was pan roasted New England hake, cannellini al fiasco, cavolo nero.

For dessert we had the option of gelato – malted vanilla and chocolate hazelnut with Italian cookies.

We also had the crostada, a chocolate espresso tart with creme anglaise and chicory gelato. The service was excellent, we couldn’t have asked for more – they were attentive to our guests and kept everyone’s glass full. We would highly recommend this venue for anyone’s next special event. We tried the restaurant 3 times before we went ahead with choosing it as our rehearsal dinner location – the food and service for the regular dining room was outstanding.

Favors for this event, and for all the events around the wedding, were themed “things we love”. We did doughnut muffins from Bread and Chocolate in Newton for the rehearsal dinner. We called ahead to order the muffins and assembled them the day before.

I picked these great labels from ErinCondren.com – how great are they? We customized them with our names for the rehearsal dinner. For 23 labels, they are $25. Both labels measure 3.25″ x 4″.