For his latest venture, Fort Worth celebrity chef Tim Love has created an Insta-worthy summer set piece: a small, stylish restaurant and bar perched on a grassy slope in the River District, with a Tex-Italian menu and a swooping backyard filled with two decks, a bar, a vegetable and herb garden, pingpong and foosball tables, and more. Let me share some snapshots from a night at Gemelle.
1. It's popular — like, really popular. On my first visit, a balmy Saturday about six weeks after the opening, every space in the parking lot is taken, and both sides of the road up to the restaurant are lined with cars. Gemelle doesn't do reservations, so when you see this, your heart sinks a little. It's gonna be a long wait.
2. It isn't especially helpful about that. It will be an hour and 45 minutes before a table opens up, we're told. The indoor bar is two deep, with no waiting area in sight, and the two women at the host stand just stare at us, as if they are willing us to disappear. #rude
Neither says a word about that outdoor bar or the bocce courts or the abundant gardens sprawling below, hidden from view. But we had read about them, so we find a back door, zigzag down two decks and a couple of staircases and make our way to a bar in the corner of the yard.
3. It is madness. "Slinging cocktails" may be a clichéd expression, but that is exactly what this lone, overwhelmed bartender is doing. Slam! Down goes a glass. Slosh! About half the gin surges like a wave over the side. This is not precision drink-making.
It looks like the best bet is the frozen Aperol spritz, ready-made and churning away like a Slurpee in a machine behind the bar. I lean in to order it, and my forearm sticks to the filthy counter. Seconds later, I have my spritz, overfilled and running down the side of the glass. Is it always this crazy? "It's better now," the bartender says. "We have a new general manager."
4. It is possible to have fun. Most of the outdoor tables are taken, and we're told there's a $500 minimum to sit in one of the outdoor lounges, which are called "cabanas," though there's no pool or other body of water in sight.
The bocce courts are open, so we play a few rounds amid the hum and the heat, surrounded by raised beds overflowing with summer foliage and decks overflowing with a really attractive, well-heeled crowd. That icy Aperol spritz is just the ticket. We're having a good time, and it feels like the evening is clicking into place.
5. Where is the lobster in the "lobster spaghetti"? I had never been to any of the restaurants owned by Tim Love, a collection that now encompasses eight eateries including his flagship Lonesome Dove Western Bistro, plus a bar, two events spaces and a catering company. Gemelle is the first time that Love has brought his signature Western idiom to an Italian menu, and I'm eager to dive in.
We start with the daily special crudo, a $12 appetizer that consists of five ragged pieces of raw hamachi about the size of postage stamps. Crudo, almost by rule, is a beautiful jewel-like preparation. This looks like dressed-up kitchen scraps. And it's given about as much consideration, carelessly covered with olive oil, salt and withered celery leaf.
Our main course pastas arrive. I poke through my lobster spaghetti and find no plump chunks of lobster meat. Could my order have been mixed up? No, the waiter insists, that is the lobster spaghetti. When I press him about the tiny curled specimens on my plate — are they crawfish tails? — he admits the dish is actually made with langoustines. This is some slippery business: Though langoustines are sometimes referred to as "small lobsters," they are a different species from the Maine lobster or spiny lobster that you'd expect when you order a lobster dish. Also, in my experience, langoustines are larger than these fingernail-size critters, and they don't have a crumbly, chalky texture.
The baked penne with Italian sausage is bland and oily, contained under a lid of leathery mozzarella. Dessert is a complete #cannolifail: a shell that tastes like a fried won ton and a filling of plain, unsweetened, unadorned ricotta cheese.
Reviews are not made on one visit alone, and in the weeks ahead, I go back to Gemelle two more times. The cacio e pepe, made with thick twists of gemelli pasta, has a crude grippiness that makes it more like mac 'n' cheese. Spaghetti and meatballs consists of three overcooked meatballs atop a twirl of spaghetti dressed in a discordantly light marinara. The best pasta sounds like the craziest — cannellini bean-jalapeño pesto ravioli with rabbit-rattlesnake sausage — and arrives looking like a swamp, submerged in a bowl of greenish browned butter. There was nothing Italian about it, just bursts of of big Southwestern flavor.
As for the rest: Pizzas are Detroit style, which here means a rectangular pan, a white-bread crust and a lot of cheese. Among the specials, the Tuesday Venison Porchetta alla Amore is a crime against nature and classic Italian cooking, with crisped, juicy pork belly wrapped around a center core of dark, mushy venison, like something from The Island of Dr. Moreau. The House Dinner — roast chicken with cubes of roasted potato and sautéed ribbons of zucchini — basic as it is, makes a better choice.
Desserts mostly continued in the #fail mode, with a gritty butterscotch budino that was so runny we could have sipped it from the glass. The chocolate gelato contained no gelato: just a few scrapings of what appeared to be chocolate mousse, served unadorned in a drinking glass. It was the most unappetizing presentation I've ever seen in a restaurant. Somehow, somewhere, the kitchen produced a perfect Meyer lemon semifreddo, with sweet summer berries, toasted almonds and a touch of whipped cream.
6. Drinks, we need drinks. The wine list is heavy on whites and rosés, and we order a 2018 La Spinetta il Rosé di Casanova as soon as we're seated on our first visit. It finally arrives, after a long delay and a struggle to remove the cork, when we're nearly done with the appetizers. It is warm. Ask for an ice bucket at Gemelle, and you get an empty tomato sauce can (#cute) that's impossible to wedge a bottle into for chilling. By the final visit, we were just dumping the cubes into the glass. Or ordering a cocktail.
7. #NoLove. I never caught a glimpse of Tim Love during any of my visits (and when you're talking celebrity chefs, you can't expect to). But when your name is spelled out in giant neon letters in the back yard, and you've named the restaurant in honor of your twin daughters, it's probably a good idea to swing by once in a while.
Gemelle
Rating: Half a star
Price: $$ (Starters $9 to $12, pasta and pizzas $12 to $16, daily specials $15 to $90, desserts $8 to $11. House Dinner $22 for a half-chicken, $32 for a whole chicken.)
Service: Generally dismissive and uninformed. In three visits, no one suggested heading to the expansive, game-filled backyard during the inevitable wait for a table; few had a ready explanation for dishes on the menu; one couldn't operate a corkscrew.
Ambience: For his latest venture, celebrity chef Tim Love has created an Insta-worthy summer set piece: A small, stylish restaurant and bar perched on a grassy slope in Fort Worth's River District, with a swooping backyard filled with two decks, a bar, a vegetable and herb garden, pingpong and foosball tables, bocce courts and a row of outdoor lounges called "cabanas," though there's no pool in sight. The menu is Tex-Italian and the place is packed, but dinner is often disappointing and sometimes bears little resemblance to what you ordered. There's no lobster in the lobster spaghetti, no gelato in the chocolate gelato, and no one chopped the chopped salad.
Noise: Shouty (76 decibels)
Drinks: A concise wine list leans toward Italy, with some good choices for less than $50, such as 2018 La Spinetta il Rosé di Casanova ($42) and 2017 La Valentina Pecorino ($40). The mildly bitter and fizzy cocktails go down easy, such as the Bitter Sweet ($12) with tequila, Campari, citrus and honey, and a frozen Aperol spritz ($10) that pairs especially well with a game of bocce ball.
Recommended: House Dinner (preserved lemon and garlic chicken, Parmesan potatoes, vegetables), Meyer lemon semifreddo with berries, frozen Aperol spritz
GPS: It's a busy restaurant with no reservations: You get what you get. Try to avoid the lower deck, which doesn't have overhead fans.
Address: 4400 White Settlement Road, Fort Worth; 817-732-9535; gemelleftw.com
Hours: Lunch Friday-Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dinner Monday-Thursday from 5 to 10 p.m., Friday-Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m., Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m.
Reservations: Not accepted for groups of fewer than 12. Cabanas can be reserved for a minimum of $500 Friday-Sunday, $300 Monday-Thursday.
Credit cards: All major
Health department score: A (97, May)
Access: Ramp up to restaurant and indoor bar; backyard and cabanas accessible through a back entrance. Lower deck is not wheelchair accessible.
Parking: Free parking in front of the restaurant and on the street
Ratings Legend
4 stars: Extraordinary (First-rate on every level; a benchmark dining experience)
3 stars: Excellent (A destination restaurant and leader on the DFW food scene)
2 stars: Very Good (Strong concept and generally strong execution)
1 star: Good (Has merit, but limited ambition or spotty execution)
No stars: Poor (Not recommended)
Noise Levels
Below 60: Quiet. Maybe too quiet.
60-69: Easy listening. Normal conversation, with a light background buzz.
70-79: Shouty. Conversation is possible, but only with raised voices.
80-85: Loud. Can you hear me now? Probably not.
86-plus: Deafening.
Prices
Average dinner per person.
$ -- $19 and under
$$ -- $20 to $50
$$$ -- $50 to $99
$$$$ -- $100 and over
