Prato

The Restaurant

Prato opened in 2011 at the corner of Morse Boulevard and Park Avenue — the central block of Winter Park's mile-long pedestrian shopping street, ten minutes north of downtown Orlando — under Park Lights Hospitality and executive chef Brandon McGlamery (an Orlando native who returned to Florida after years on the kitchen lines of Napa Valley's Auberge du Soleil and Santa Monica's Mélisse). The dining room runs about a hundred and twenty covers across a single long-bar floor, a covered patio that opens to Park Avenue, and a private dining room at the back for groups of twelve to twenty.

The kitchen serves a modern Italian menu organised around chef de cuisine Matt Cargo's pasta programme — about fourteen handmade pastas at any given time, with daily rotation built into the menu — and McGlamery's wood-burning oven at the center of the open kitchen. Signature plates include the wagyu meatballs with whipped ricotta and sourdough toast; the bucatini cacio e pepe with house-made spaghetti and Tellicherry pepper; a whole-roasted branzino with charred lemon and Sicilian-olive tapenade; and the Prato Mortadella focaccia that has held its place as the bar menu's signature opener since the room opened.

The wine list runs to about a hundred and eighty labels with proper Italian regional depth — Barolo, Brunello, Etna Rosso, Friulano, Soave Classico — and a parallel Old World list focused on small producers. Service is at the upper tier of Park Avenue dining: career captains, table-side pasta finishing, sommelier rounds before pours rather than after. The Park Avenue patio at twilight — string lights, slow pedestrian traffic, the live oaks of Central Park across the street — is one of the city's standing romantic photographs. For Winter Park dining, Prato is the address that has held the corner for fifteen years and shows no sign of stepping back.