Affordable Italian Luxury
Affordable Italian Luxury: Pan e Vino Italian Ristorante
While Myrtle Beach has a plethora of outstanding restaurants, too often patrons hesitate to visit due to steep prices that seem necessary for high quality cuisine. At Pane e Vino, this typical hangup is non-existent. Whether you’re on your way back to the beach from playing at the Man O’ War, Wizard, or the Witch golf courses, or you’re just looking for a fantastic Italian restaurant on a small budget, Pane e Vino is the ideal locale for creative Italian at a reasonable price.
The Italian Ristorante opened in early 2009 in the plaza just north of the intersection at Carolina Forest Boulevard and River Oaks Drive. However, despite its recent incarnation, the restaurant has the comfortable familiarity of an older, more established business that immediately puts diners at ease. Outdoor café-style seating is available for a relaxing lunch or dinner in addition to the restaurant’s indoor dining room. Although the décor is sparse, the dining room is casually elegant with linen tablecloths and fresh flowers on each table.
Although the lunch menu may appear a little more sparse than the dinner selection, each dish is made from scratch and individually prepared by the restaurant’s lead chef, who takes the extra time and care required to present dishes equal in quality and artistry. Lighter fare includes a number of Panini sandwiches and exquisite salads including the particularly outstanding Chicken Rosemary Salad that involves slow-roasted rosemary chicken on mixed greens, mozzarella cheese, kalamata olives and fresh tomatoes. Larger entrees include smaller variations of Pane e Vino’s pasta and baked dishes like the Eggplant Parmigiana, Pollo alla Cacciatora and Manicotti. While these Italian standards usually cost upward of ten dollars at restaurants of the same culinary caliber, there is no meal on the menu more expensive than the Lasagna at an impressive $7.75.
The dinner menu offers a wider variety of entrées, that include seafood based dishes, veal specialties and even a succulent Rack of Lamb. Although the prices on dinner plates run a little higher than the lunch menu, portion sizes are significantly larger and all meals are accompanied with homemade soup, salad, and fresh bread. While all the dishes offered are given special care to detail and artistic innovation, the Shrimp Dorati, Saltimbocca alla Romana, and Involtini are perhaps the most brilliantly executed of all the entrées and are cause to praise Pane e Vino as perhaps the most impressive new Italian restaurant in the Myrtle Beach area. Despite the quality of the delicacies, the dishes average in price around $12, although the most expensive is understandably the Rack of Lamb coming in at $20.95.
Pane e Vino offers smaller variations of the main entrées in a children’s menu with meals under $6. Additionally, they have an incredible dessert menu featuring homemade Italian favorites like the best Tiramisu in greater Myrtle Beach. An espresso bar provides the perfect after-meal drink of both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic variety.
Pane e Vino also boasts a full bar featuring a large variety of domestic and imported wines to perfectly complement every meal on the menu. The waitstaff and the chef are all thoroughly educated about the intricacies of wine sampling and accompaniment and are comfortable lending advice about individual wine selection.
Pane e Vino is located in the Food Lion Shopping Center at 4016-7 River Oaks Drive in the Carolina Forest area of Myrtle Beach. They are open Mondays - Saturdays for lunch from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm and for dinner from 5 – 9:30 pm. For take out orders or more information please call 843.903.3136.
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