{"id":9946,"date":"2025-07-20T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/?p=9946"},"modified":"2025-07-18T15:21:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T20:21:44","slug":"zafferano-ristorante","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/?p=9946","title":{"rendered":"Zafferano Ristorante"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ZafferanoAfter the restaurant space at the Wyndham Garden in Fitchburg sat empty for a few years,\u00a0Zafferano Ristorante<\/a> filled it to serve Indian and Italian fare.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It’s a unique combination, to say the least, with several dishes fusing the two cuisine types. For example, the pizzas include a samosa pizza ($18) and two types of paneer pizza ($19 each).<\/p>\n

The butter chicken pizza ($21) was a good choice. It came with plenty of the Delhi-style chicken, which tasted like tandoori chicken, and it sat atop a crunchy thin crust.<\/p>\n

For the record, there are a few non-fusion pizzas, including the very satisfying classic pepperoni pizza ($19). It had the right amount of sauce and chew to the crust, which wasn’t as thin as the butter chicken pizza.<\/p>\n

Beyond the pizzas, fusion items extend to several entrees. When you take the first bite of the lamb lasagna ($23), you can instantly tell it’s made with lamb instead of beef. I appreciated the uniqueness of this dish, though I thought it could have used slightly more cheese. Next time, I’ll try the masala chicken parmesan ($22).<\/p>\n

I was happy to see grilled braised octopus ($19) on the menu, and it did not disappoint. The diced octopus was gently seasoned and mixed well with the arugula, cucumber, red onions and tomatoes.<\/p>\n

\"ZafferanoFor the less adventurous, try the biryani. The chicken added to the vijayawada biryani ($19) dish tasted like General Tso’s, and the rice was less spiced than others I’ve had. The accompanying yogurt sauce was excellent.<\/p>\n

A couple of items that I don’t see on the menu anymore are the lamb vindaloo, which was a delicious and spicy dish full of tender lamb, and the pistachio-crusted halibut ($32), which was flaky, perfectly cooked and topped with a yummy mango sauce.<\/p>\n

While Zafferano Ristorante also has a full bar and specialty cocktail menu, I have yet to be impressed with how any of my drinks have been crafted, like none of the bartenders have ever made a drink in their lives. Hopefully, the place will fix that, as the bar side brings back a lot of nostalgia from its previous incarnation.<\/p>\n

Zafferano Ristorante serves lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the restaurant space at the Wyndham Garden in Fitchburg sat empty for a few years,\u00a0Zafferano Ristorante filled it to serve Indian and Italian fare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,242,62],"class_list":["post-9946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-restaurant-reviews","tag-fitchburg","tag-indian","tag-italian"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9946"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9955,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9946\/revisions\/9955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eatdrinkmadison.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}