There are many great restaurants all over Fairfield County. Located in the heart of downtown Fairfield at 5919 70 Reef Rd, the Mediterranean restaurant Toto offers delicious food for all taste palettes.

As soon as I approached the restaurant, I was pleased to see that there was both indoor and outdoor seating. The outdoor seating is completely covered and is connected to the inside section. I was impressed with this because it’s nice to have options. If the inside part is extremely crowded and loud, the outside part may be better.

With this flexibility, my family and I chose to sit outside. As we started to skim the menu, many items popped out at me. Although the restaurant classified as Mediterranean, I was impressed with the variety of options. Everything sounded good, from salads to pasta to fish and meat dishes.

I was also amazed at the gluten-free dishes. Gluten-free options are growing across restaurants all over, but it’s still hard at times to find good tasting gluten-free food. Only one item was marked gluten-free on the menu but after talking to the extremely friendly owner, I was happy to hear that there were many more options.

Almost all of the “small plate” appetizers were gluten-free, as well as their entire fryer so there is no need to worry about cross-contamination. Finally, all their bread crumbs were gluten free for dishes.

I ordered the arancini rice balls to start and had the chicken milanese. The arancini was $9.50 and tasted very good. I wasn’t a big fan of the purple yogurt dipping sauce for them, but my mom loved to dip hers in it. My chicken milanese was $22, which was a bit pricey in my opinion. However, it was served with a salad on top which added to the dish.

My mom ordered the fried brussel sprouts for $10.50 and the lemon sole with white wine sauce and sauteed spinach for $28.50. She enjoyed both of those and thought that the fish was especially fresh tasting.

Both of these items were expensive, but it is an upscale restaurant with great food and amazing staff. I was very impressed overall with the quality of my food and the experience I had there.