A restaurant that claims to combine a classical Italian kitchen with the local style and ingredients of northern Sweden in an upscale style. It's a big statement and in order to live up to their words the establishment must deliver on all accounts. It does deliver, on some of them. As this is my hometown I'm very familiar with the local dining scene, and this is a restaurant that sort of falls in between the trendy upscale places and the pubs. My immediate feeling is that they try a bit too hard to be more than they are.
I went out for a casual dinner with my wife and we chose Invito since we hadn't tried it yet. To start off the ambiance is nice, tables located around the walls with a contemporary modern-style cocktail bar in the middle serving in 360 degrees. The bar is however your standard run-of-the-mill serving of cocktails found at most pubs. No real signature flare or excitement in the drinks. Cocktail-lounge music in the background, soft without being too distinct or taking any focus away from the dinner-table conversations. The serving staff is nice and friendly, but a little bit too slow in noticing the hints on when you want their attention. I think they could step this up a few notches and use at least some staff with more experience.
As for the food we each had a 3-course meal, with different dishes divided between my wife and I. Started off with an antipasto plate which was ok but nothing out of the ordinary. For main I had the duck breast with tomato chutney, carrot terrine, and cauliflower puree. Sounded nice in written form and was nice eating as well. The wine recommendation of Surí barbera d asti DOC was a good choice. However, the duck was a bit too overcooked for me. Could easily have done with a bit more pink meat and crispier skin. The dessert was actually for me the highlight, a crème brulée with blood-orange sorbet and crumble was truly prepared to perfection. So it ended on a positive note.
Since this restaurant also functions as a nightclub in the later hours of the night, this does shine through a bit in how they run their dinner service - which is not meant as a compliment. In all, an ok place if you want a dinner out, but not a place to visit if you want to be blown away by perfection. Perhaps try it once to make up your own mind, but keep expectations within reason. Also, the price range doesn't justify the quality of the food. Drop the prices a little bit or up your game. read more