Went to Russo's coal fired kitchen last night, since Shannon and I never got around to an anniversary dinner. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it a 5 and then some. The moment we walked into the place, the owner showed us to a table after apologizing that it had just been cleaned off. You know the difference between a table that had 'just' been cleaned off and a table that had been cleaned off? ' Zackly. But he apologized anyway, seated us, told us that our server would be Andrea and if we had any questions, she would be more than happy to answer them. Now, I may have forgotten her name, cuz I'm like that, but it started with an 'A', so I'll stick with Andrea. Less than a minute later, a well dress young man with just the right amount of scruff showed up to see what we would like to drink. I mentioned that he didn't look much like an Andrea. "That's because I'm Bob", said he. "Andrea is my wife." and he pointed to a young woman behind the bar wrapping flatware. Bob was right there when we needed him, was charming, polite, talkative just enough and was gone when we didn't want him around. Excellent. The food... my standard test to Italian cooking is chicken Parmesan; Shannon got a Tortellacci, which is a beef and veal stuffed pasta ... was outstanding. One bite of my parm (which Bob made sure had 'meat' sauce and not just marinara), and I was taken back to a tiny restaurant in Indiana that I had not been to in 50 years. During the meal, Bob showed up with a glass of wine. "I poured too much, so this would be on the house". What the what? Okay.. I did mention to him that it was our anniversary dinner. But what? It was a nice, not too dry red, and a darn nice gesture. This guy was gonna get a tip. Shannon orders a NY cheesecake. Holy cow! You can smell the lemon, the amaretto, the richness of it. That was some darn good cheesecake. Did I mention everything is made there, from scratch? The owner, half way through the cheesecake, comes over and says, in his NY Italian downtown dialect, "So.... a little birdee tells me that this is your anniversary." He looks around, making sure the place is busy enough. "The cheesecake is on the house." and with that he shuffles away to make someone else's night, like some mafioso house elf on an errand of mercy. We could have stayed longer. We could have stayed till they closed. We didn't. They had people waiting, and it was time to leave, as all things have their time. It was my wish that those folks who got our table next were served by Bob and his wife Andrea and felt the same magic in the air that we did. Yep. It was a good place to eat. We will be going back.

Definitely one of the best places for Italian in Tulsa. I've never had a bad experience at Russo's! The food is always terrific and super fresh. Both the atmosphere and service display their true attention to detail; it's upscale dining with the feel of a neighborhood eatery. I highly recommend the bruschetta and anything with seafood.