Whole Food Trattoria
We are one of 2 cities in the US fortunate enough to have a restaurant located in the center of our Whole Foods Market - this is completely separate from the food court, and is conveniently located between the wine shop and the cheese counter. I say conveniently because you can make trips to either while waiting for your meal. It had never really occurred to me that I might write a review of the counter, being that it is and overpriced lunch oasis in the middle of a grocery store, doesn't have a full staff, etc. etc, but seeing as both Columbus Monthly and the Columbus Dispatch reviewed it as though it were a "real" restaurant, when Husband suggested we eat there whilst shopping for our Christmas party, I thought I'd take the opportunity to follow suit.
Service could be spotty. We were there a little early for the lunch rush - around 11:30, and were therefore eating with some of the trattoria employees. Although we were given water and bread in relatively short order, there was no communication between the three employees behind the counter (for, at that time, just the 2 of us), and no one took our order. Nor did anyone ask a fellow employee if they had taken our order. We finally asked with whom we should place our order. 
We could see the workers assembling the food, and this is both blessing and curse, and the reason why I cannot take this seriously as a restaurant. If I were dining in a restaurant and saw the line cooks take anything premade from a container and slather it on toast, I would question the integrity of the establishment, especially if I were paying over $20 for the privilege of dining there at lunch. We started with the crostini plate - toasted baguette discs topped with (all premade) roasted red pepper spread, lightly truffled (and good) artichoke heart spread, and tapanade. The plate was drizzled with olive oil and dusted with Parmesan. While good, I couldn't help but think I might as well be eating from the sample aisle, and wondering why I was paying $6 so that someone could demonstrate for me the wonders I can work with Whole Foods Market take-home spreads and baguettes.
Next up, the Mediterranean salad, a decent mix of undressed mesclun greens topped with artichoke hearts, olives, tomatoes and sauteed Haloumi (a slightly rubbery Greek sheep's milk cheese which does not change shape when it melts, making it a nice, meaty alternative to meat or tofu). Haloumi is rather salty on its own, and I couldn't fathom why anyone would add salt to it - I love my salt, but this was almost unpalatably salty. Furthermore, and this might sound whiny, but the plate was ridiculously small for the size of the salad. Every time we tried to take a bite, three other things fell off the plate onto the counter, and the undressed nature of the greens meant there was nothing to glue the mess to the plate. All in all, however, the salad came out as the winner, especially given it's price tag of $5, the least expensive item on the menu. Add some shrimp for $3, as did the lady next to us, and you almost have a reason to dine here.
We also opted for one of my favorite seasonal dishes which I rarely indulge in, given the nature of its being loaded with butter and all - pumpkin tortellini in sage brown butter sauce. Whole Foods' version is premade, out of the box fresh pasta, tossed in loads of brown butter and topped with spiced pecans. The filling was good enough, but the pasta was so thick and undercooked it was literally difficult to swallow. I found myself trying to dig out the filling to no avail, simply to get my money's worth ($9). I also would have liked another handful of sage in the sauce, but the nuts were good. This was a tragic interpretation of a favorite cold weather dish, and I was getting really irritated by this point, as I am perfectly capable of not only properly cooking Whole Foods' ready-to-boil tortellini and burning some butter, I could probably make my own from scratch and not create and inedible knot of pasta. Total tab for these three items - appetizer, salad, entree - was $21, plus tip. The only saving grace was seeing a wine rep we knew who couriered over some flutes of good champagne, and that had nothing to do with Whole Foods.
I hate to sound like some of the other critics in Columbus, who whine about the presence of sweet things in savory dishes, the oversalting of side dishes, and the undercooking of green things, but I would like to pause here to discuss proper filled pasta cooking. I have never been to Italy, but I have had a fair number of filled, homemade pastas in my time, and after consulting with Husband, who has been to Italy and ate a fair number of filled, homemade pastas there, we have concluded: pasta which contains a filling has a job to do, contain filling. It is a filling delivery system. It should be soft and delicate - the best should be practically see-through, not hard, chewy, and constantly threatening to choke me. I know it takes time to do it the right way, and the pasta might break if boiled too hard and blah, blah, blah. It's no excuse. This goes for you, too, La Tavola. Okay, I have to stop this rant, my throat hurts just discussing it.
I can see for people who work in the area, Whole Foods might be a refreshing change after eating a lot of fast food, and for the many wine and food reps who visit daily, it's probably a nice place to take a load off halfway through the day, but other than that, if ever you find yourself at Whole Foods and you are starving, skip everything, and I mean everything - their prepared food is so mediocre yet criminally overpriced you are better off boiling dried pasta and mixing in sauce from a jar - and head over to their pizza oven. The pizza at Whole Foods is actually pretty decent. They will heat it up for you in their oven just before you eat it, and if you flirt with the pizza guy you might just get an extra slice (it occurred to me the other day that they probably tell the pizza guys to do this just so that girls like me will feel flattered and keep coming back). But, at $2.50 a slice, it's probably the only deal to be had in the entire store.
Info: Whole Foods Market, particularly the "trattoria" therein, 3670 W. Dublin-Granville Road (Northwest side) 614.760.5556
