The Choice is Yours, Dear Friend

Different dining experiences highlight trip to Gubbio's

Randy Shemanski

With no shortage of dining options in the Scranton area, restaurants are often posed with the issue of either finding a niche or coming up with a way to stand out from other area eateries.

One place that appears to have achieved that goal is Gubbio's in Dunmore. Located at 411 Chestnut Street, the restaurant (formerly named The Willow) offers three different dining experiences. Featuring an outdoor patio area, a dining room, and a lounge, Gubbio's gives diners the choice of setting depending on their moods.

Despite the picture perfect weather on our recent visit, we bypassed the patio area and headed for the lounge and its two flat-screen TVs, one behind the bar and the other in the seating area.

A small set of steps and sliding glass doors separate the lounge from the dining room, which also features a separate entrance. It's almost like two different indoor establishments connected only by a kitchen and a menu, which we think is a good thing.

The lounge features a bar that comfortably seats 10 to 12 and a handful of tables along the wall. But the best feature in the lounge is the couches, which give patrons the opportunity to relax and put their feet up while enjoying a martini or other cocktail of their choice.

The dining room, with a wine shelf along one wall and an inviting, intimate atmosphere, is the place to go for a quiet dinner.

We chose to sit in the lounge (gotta have the flat-screen TV nearby) and after perusing the menu (which features American-style cuisine) for a few minutes, we settled on an appetizer of wing bites ($5.95) and the chicken marsala ($12.95) as our entree. Other tempting choices included the chicken spring rolls ($6.95) and the homemade fried mozzarella ($5.95) as appetizers, and the numerous steak choices ($17.95-26.95) were equally appealing on the entree menu.

But we're suckers for chicken, and when the wing bites came out, we were pleased with the choice. Even though the hot sauce appeared similar to tomato sauce, it was anything but. It had just enough zing without forcing us to drink a gallon of water to douse the fire on our tongues.

A few minutes after gobbling up the wing bites, the friendly bartender brought our chicken marsala. Topped with large mushrooms slices over a bed of linguine, two large boneless chicken breasts were piping hot and soaked in tasty marsala sauce. The tender chicken rendered our knife useless as we devoured the first thick, juicy piece in a matter of moments. The linguine was the perfect compliment, although we could have chosen a potato or vegetable, instead.

Accompanied by a house salad (which came out before the wing bites) and two fresh-baked rolls, the dinner was more than we could handle in one sitting, which meant lunch the next day was a savory reminder of our visit to Gubbio's the night before.

With a handful of beers on tap and a refrigerator behind the bar stocked with numerous other beers (including microbrews), there are plenty of choices to wash down your meal, including the aforementioned wine.

We do have one bit of advice for anyone planning to dine at Gubbio's - if you plan to order a dinner, sit in the dining area or on the patio. While the bar in the lounge is comfortable and a great place for a drink, the lack of leg room below the bar makes it difficult to get close enough without having to worry about ending up with some of your dinner in your lap.

If that's the only negative we could find, we have a hard time disagreeing if you accuse us of nitpicking.