Cafe Trio
680 S. 900 East, Salt Lake City ; 801-533-8746
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map)
Quick and uncomplicated food featuring pastas, pizzas and salads. Efficient and professional service.
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Cuisine: American, Italian
Price: $$
Hours: M-Th, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m., F-S, 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Su, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
Liquor: Full Service
Corkage: $
Reservations: Not accepted/necessary
Accepts:    
Website: http://www.triodining.com
Recommended Dishes: Salmon, chopped vegetable salad, passion fruit sorbet.
December 10, 2004
Trio Cafe's triple threat: Great food, cozy atmosphere, divine wines
By Nancy Hobbs
Comfortable atmosphere. Simple and satisfying food. Progressive wine service. Those aren't the basis for Trio Cafe's name, but a triumvirate of attributes that the neighborhood restaurant brings to mind.
Trio is not one of the hot new spots in town; it's been on the corner of 900 East and 700 South (what many still refer to as "the original Dodo" location) for several years. What is new is the ownership, though no startling revisions accompanied the changing of the guard last summer when Mikel Trapp and partner Dave Derfel bought in.
Trapp's name and his food have been known to Utah diners for quite some time: as former chef at Metropolitan; as consultant and hands-on chef for the past three Olympic Games; as culinary director at Snowbird; as co-chair of this year's Taste of the Nation fund-raiser to fight hunger; as in-house caterer for the Jewish Community Center; and as co-owner of Fresco and now Trio restaurants.
With the expected announcement any day of a second Trio location in the south valley, which Trapp is overseeing, his plate is definitely piled high.
While it had been a long time since my last visit to the existing Trio, it was as welcoming as I remembered. Whether you are seated at a booth or table, the light wood furnishings and large windows lend an airy, comfortable feeling to the dining area, conducive to relaxing and lingering, but also suited to a quick meal.
One drawback is that the restaurant doesn't take reservations, so you might want to avoid the usual crunch times. With the restaurant open from 11 a.m. until 10 or 11 at night, changing from lunch to dinner menus at 5 p.m., that's fairly easy to do.
My lunch companion characterized Trio as a frequent haunt and rattled off some of her favorites, particularly at dinner. On this day, she opted for the popular Trio club, a mainstay that will remain on a slightly revised menu that makes its debut today, according to Trapp.
Her sandwich, or panini, was more than ample, with layers of tender chicken, crisp bacon and fontina cheese dressed with a delicious herb aioli and tucked between sliced focaccia.
The chicken salad panini also was very good, with diced meat, celery and onions tinged with a bit of curry and spread between slices of warm, grilled bread. Alas, it won't be on the new menu, but the new addition sounds promising: maple-brined pork loin with fontina and a fig and sweet onion chutney on focaccia.
Sandwiches range from $6.50 to $8.50 and come with a house salad, which is a nice mix of field greens tossed with balsamic vinaigrette, or a cup of the house white bean soup or daily soup.
Trio offers an excellent array of salads, from a traditional Caesar or cobb to roasted beet and arugula with goat cheese, or its newest addition: BLT salad with gorgonzola dressing.
A perfect meal, in my opinion, is a Trio salad paired with an order of flatbread served either with goat cheese and roasted peppers, or accompanied by a trio of spreads: a garlicky olive tapenade, pesto and a creamy white-bean purée.
Pasta and pizza aren't bad choices, either. I generally avoid pasta carbonara for the sake of my arteries, but indulge at least once a year. I wasn't disappointed at Trio: The bacon was crisp and plentiful, the pasta tasted fresh, and the sauce was creamy and delectable.
It is the type of dish that begs for a nice glass of wine, and Trio is definitely among the city's best in that regard. The restaurant has distinguished itself for years by providing high-quality, affordable wines, with the emphasis on affordable. Every white wine is $5 for a glass or $24 a bottle; reds are $6 a glass or $28 for the bottle, which in many cases isn't a lot more than you would pay at the state liquor store.
The staff is well-trained and informed about the wines, and therefore able to make helpful suggestions. After taking orders from our table of four, our waitress suggested a bottle of wine that was pleasing to all of us, but that we agreed we otherwise wouldn't have ordered.
That, Trapp said, is a major impetus for Trio's wine pricing: to encourage customers to try different wines that have been selected in keeping with Chef Shannon Rourke's menu, whether it's a light salad, a New York strip with green peppercorn sauce or maple-infused pork loin and polenta.
Trio Cafe
In a nutshell: An inviting and comfortable cafe where diners can relax over a simple but delicious lunch or dinner, with menu items ranging from pasta and pizza to pork loin and steak. Salads are impressive, and the fresh-baked flatbread is hard to pass up. A nice selection of wines suited to the menu are all available for $5 or $6 per glass. Look for a new south valley location in coming months, as well as a Sunday brunch.
Where: 680 S. 900 East, Salt Lake City; 801-533-TRIO
Hours: Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Prices: Lunch entrées from $6.50 to $11; dinner entrées from $10 to $19
Liquor: Yes, with premium wines offered at $5 and $6 a glass
Reservations: Not accepted
Child's menu: No
Takeout: Yes
Wheelchair accessible: Yes
Parking: In front and in lot to the north
Credit cards: All major
June 21, 2002
Trio's Hot Combo: Pizza, Pasta, Patio
By Anne Wilson
Dining out isn't the big occasion it used to be: in 1955, Americans spent only a quarter of every food dollar eating outside the home. Now, it's 46 cents, according to the National Restaurant Association.
There is a lot of competition for that food money, as any unsuccessful restaurateur could tell you. Those who succeed find a niche and do it as well or better than the competition.
Trio, a new Italian-themed eatery that has taken over a longtime restaurant space in Salt Lake City, wants to be your new favorite modestly priced, casual dining spot. Nothing on the a la carte dinner menu costs more than $16, and most of the entrees hover around $10. It's possible to get a pretty good meal at Trio for under $20, including a glass of wine.
It's also possible to get a mediocre meal, although those are the exception. Most of the food served at Trio is fresh, nicely cooked and expertly seasoned. The menu has enough variety to satisfy most appetites, the wine list is interesting and the patio is one of the prettiest around. With all that going for it, Trio is already drawing big crowds.
Unfortunately, the restaurant doesn't take reservations. But turnover is fairly quick, although diners who don't want to wait should avoid obvious peak times.
Trio is named for its three partners: David Harries, who owns the successful fine-dining Italian restaurant Fresco; Todd Miller, the creative force in the kitchen; and businessman Patrick Reedy. They undertook a significant remodel of the space formerly occupied by Eclipse, whose owners originally opened The Dodo in that same space back in the '70s.
Trio's patio gets most of its appeal from a rounded, white railing that has extensions to support strips of yellow canvas that can be extended across the patio to provide shade. A grassy knoll just off the patio provides enough room for youngsters to romp if they become restless.
It's a relaxing spot to enjoy a summer meal of pasta, pizza, salad or one of Trio's more substantial entrees. Trio's food is designed to be quick and uncomplicated, with traditional seasonings like fresh herbs, vinegar, cheeses and olive oil. Caramelized vegetables, for example, add sweetness to the flavorful flat iron steak ($16), finished with a succulent sauce made of chianti and thyme.
Some of the food becomes more than the sum of its parts. Thin, crispy housemade flatbread flavored with rosemary ($6.50) is paired with tart goat cheese, roasted red peppers and roasted tomatoes that combine to become an intensely flavored appetizer for four or a meal in itself when paired with a salad.
Seared fresh salmon ($14) is a perfect hot-weather meal -- cooked just until done, topped with parsley pesto that gains much of its lively flavor from capers and served with a crisp garnish of sliced fennel, arugula and cremini mushrooms flavored with fresh lemon.
The chopped vegetable salad ($7) is another inspired dish, chock full of green beans, yellow squash, onions, red peppers, celery, juicy caper berries, green and kalamata olives, all of it dressed with a light but tasty vinaigrette. Salads are one of Trio's strengths: they are innovative, large and intensely flavored, whether it is the Caesar with its intense garlic bite ($8) or the Cobb with its wealth of smoky bacon ($9).
Pizza (all $10) comes in four varieties, loaded with four cheeses and fresh herbs or topped with prosciutto, pepperoni, roasted peppers and olives and drizzled with balsamic vinegar.
But there are weak spots in this menu as well. An appetizer of creamy polenta with mascarpone cheese is filling but bland ($6). Go for the pesto topping instead. Linguine carbonara ($11.50) was disappointing, mostly because its thin sauce bore no resemblance to the traditional egg-based dressing that gives carbonara its richness. And pasta arrabbiata, which should have a bite from red chili flakes, was neither spicy nor sufficiently cooked -- the tubular pasta was a few cooking minutes short of al dente.
The other disappointment was the creme brulee ($5), a classic dessert of egg custard topped by caramelized sugar. It is a tiny serving and a rather thin custard, definitely not the rich treat it ought to be. But the passion fruit sorbet (ice cream and sorbet selections vary) was out of this world, as was the molten chocolate cake.
Trio offers another surprise in its wine list. Every bottle of white costs $22 and every bottle of red is $24. Every glass, whether red or white, is $5. Harries figured that flat pricing would encourage diners to try wines they don't normally drink.
Our servers were efficient and professional on two separate visits, although the pacing of one meal was slightly uneven. Good servers are hard to find and harder to keep, but Trio seems to be doing a decent job of hiring and training.
Trio
680 S. 900 East, Salt Lake City; 533-8746
Hours: Monday through Saturday, lunch from 11 a.m.; dinner from 5 p.m.
Prices: Dinner entrees $9 to $16
Liquor: Full bar, wine list
Handicapped Accessible: Yes
Reservations: No
Takeout: Yes
Outdoor Dining: Yes
Kid's Menu: Yes
Parking: On-site lot, street
Credit Cards: All major
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