PI Update: Maria & Enzo's Splendor

Of the new Italian restaurant trio that opened recently on the Island, the Blog had visited Pizza Ponte as well as Enzo's Hideaway Tunnel Bar. Yesterday it was time for a visit to Maria & Enzo's.

The restaurant's aviation-themed venue features a check-in counter at the door reminiscent of an airline ticket counter. You are then escorted inside to this large room. The entrance is on the Island's upper level where BET Soundstage used to stand before it was demolished.  The main room dining is one level below in what was once Soundstage's dance floor area.

Large windows fill the room with light as well as a nice view of Village Lake.

The building once served as the airline terminal for Disney Springs, although its hardly clear where the runways were!

Different areas have different Gate numbers.

With the room wrapped in airline posters and destination graphics.

The restaurant was close to dead during my mid-afternoon visit. When it's busy, there's dining on the upper level too.

When the Blog was told early in construction that this was going to be a "performance arena", those wraparound upper balconies were supposedly where patrons could watch the action on the dance floor below just like they did in BET Soundstage days.

Indeed, during construction one could see those wraparound balconies and picture a dance floor below filled with late night club-goers.  It made sense that the aerialists now performing in crammed conditions next door in The Edison would have been better served here.

As a fan of Art Deco, this place is stunning. But this could have, and should have been a club rather than yet another Italian restaurant in Disney Springs.