The newest addition to Empire Eats’ lineup brings another nice Italian restaurant to downtown. With Gravy, Empire has teamed up with another tried an true restaurant in North Raleigh. This time it is the folks from Bella Monica, an always-crowded favorite at Duraleigh and Edwards Mill.

While Bella Monica is undoubtedly a family, strip-shopping center setting, with its menus of pizza and delicious lasagna, Gravy is a different story. This restaurant is urban casual, geared less toward families and more toward young adult diners and business clientele.

The menu is easy, but not simple. There are three main sections to the menu: pastas, baked dishes, and higher-end entrees. The pasta section is the most interesting, presenting eight different sauces/dishes with four different meats and Portobello optional additions. This means that this easy section of the menu actually contains 48 different combinations.

The Oven Baked portion of the menu brings expected popular favorites such as lasagne and ziti, but also contains an interesting take on scampi: shrimp with grilled polenta, olives, capers, and tomatoes. The Entrees section contains a dish each for seafood, veal, chicken, and steak. Of course there are obligatory salads and appetizers to boot.

We began with salads. The Grilled Apricot and Burrata Salad was fantastic. It has mixed greens, spiced pecans in addition to the delicious grilled apricot and burrata (a creamy mozzarella), with a mild balsamic dressing.

The Romaine salad was a different story. On paper this looks like a winner, with its guanciale (unsmoked Italian bacon), anchovies, fresh shaved parmesan, and croutons. Unfortunately it has the worst Caesar dressing I’ve ever encountered. Perhaps when the recipe called for 1 teaspoon of garlic, the chef put in 50 tablespoons? It is so overpowering that it ruins the palate for not only the rest of the meal, but the rest day and more. A trusted friend who dined on a separate occasion described this salad as “inedible”. I only wish I had quit on it early.

The salads are served with bread that has been smeared with extremely garlicky pesto, then topped in the oven for crispness. While the bread is good and the accompanying olive oil is outstanding, the pesto also knocks one over with garlic.

We moved on to the pastas and enjoyed them. Norma (pictured above), with its eggplant, red sauce, and pecorino on rigatoni was very good. The sauce is a strong, mildly acidic sauce, but had much depth of flavor. Even better was the Vodka sauce with chicken (pictured below). Its pink sauce is mildly spicy and a fantastic blend served on perfectly cooked tagliatelle for a change.

I also tried the Puttanesca with sausage which was good. It featured olives, capers, and anchovies in a spicy, dark red sauce on rigatoni. While heavy, the sauce did not overshadow the delicious sausages.

The restaurant is located in the former Riviera location on Wilmington Street. The renovations performed were mainly cosmetic, but whoever the designer was did an excellent job visually. I really love the combination of tan, beige, purple, and fern green with accents of red being used here. Also excellent are the bathroom doors which are wood, but have giant, contrasting stained “M” and “W” features. Unfortunately nothing was done to reduce the restaurant space’s ambient noise. One of the common complaints with the Riviera was that it was Raleigh’s loudest restaurant, and Gravy is no different. On a Saturday night with a full house, it is extremely difficult to hear your dining partner and your server.

The wait staff at Gravy is excellent. There is a noticeable sense of urgency in their step, though we never felt rushed. The menu was clearly explained, and drinks were refreshed appropriately.

I want to pull for this restaurant. I really do. Empire Properties has taken risks to bring some very interesting projects to give downtown Raleigh much-needed character. However the hours after eating at Gravy two times were miserable. I don’t want to feel like Garlic Man, so why should I choose to eat at a place that makes me feel this way? I am hearing some of these complaints from my friends, and I’m afraid that if they cannot get the garlic and noise issues taken care of, Gravy will be another wasted effort in that space’s history.