Amore

The plate to order first at Amoré is the triangle penne in red sauce. It is the dish local coverage keeps coming back to, and it tells you what this place is about: pasta made in the building, not pulled from a bag. Amoré is an Italian, steak, and seafood restaurant at 239 Pearl St. in downtown Fort Wayne, and it leads with the things a kitchen only bothers to do when it means it.

Where It Sits

You will find Amoré inside The Pearl development, at the corner of Pearl Street and Maiden Lane. That puts it squarely in the downtown grid, walkable from the surrounding blocks, with additional seating along Pearl Street itself. The room runs about 5,150 square feet and seats up to 164 guests, so it is built for a full night rather than a quick turn: a big table for a family, a two-top for a date, or one of the 14 bar-top seats if you are eating solo and want to watch the room work.

It opened the first week of December 2024, founded by Chuck and Lisa Surack of Surack Enterprises. For a downtown that has been filling in its dining options one address at a time, a from-scratch Italian and steak house at this size is a real addition, not a stopgap.

What to Order

The menu is built on three things done carefully. The pasta is house-made, which is the whole argument for coming here over a place that opens jars and boxes. The steaks are Wood Farms beef, with a bone-in rib-eye among the cuts local coverage has singled out. The seafood side leans on Faroe Island salmon. Across the board, the kitchen sources from local farms and suppliers, which is the kind of detail that shows up on the plate more than on the wall.

A few specifics worth knowing before you sit down:

• Triangle penne with red sauce, the pasta dish that keeps getting named in local coverage.
• Bone-in rib-eye, cut from Wood Farms beef.
• Cacio e pepe, the plain-looking pasta that a kitchen either nails or fumbles, and a good read on whether the house-made claim holds up.
• Faroe Island salmon, the anchor of the seafood side.

Who It's For

Amoré is a sit-down restaurant pitched at a proper meal: a night out downtown, a table you linger at, a bar seat when you want company without a reservation. If you are choosing between the steak side and the pasta side, that is the genuine fork in the road here, and either one is the reason to come. If you are weighing it against the other white-tablecloth rooms in town, it belongs in the same conversation as Ruth's Chris Steak House, Chops Steak and Seafood, and Eddie Merlot's, with the difference that its pasta is the draw as much as its beef. If it is the Italian half pulling you in, Casa Grille Italiano is worth a look too.

The short version: a downtown Italian and steak house that makes its own pasta, grills Wood Farms beef, and has the seats and the square footage to make an evening of it. Order the triangle penne, and decide for yourself whether the rib-eye or the cacio e pepe comes next.