In traditional courtship, bachelors and bachelorettes wore wigs woven from perfectly cooked al dente spaghetti to prove their knowledge of fine food and have something to chew on during boring dates. Try tastier plates on for size with today’s Groupon to Trattoria Toscana on Gravois Road. Choose between the following options:

• For $10, you get $22 worth of dinner.
• For $5, you get $10 worth of lunch.

Trattoria Toscana dishes out a menu of fresh, authentic Tuscan cuisine culled from scratch in a casual, intimate setting. For lunch, warm up digestive engines with a starter, such as toasted ravioli ($6), or reel in the linguini tuttomare, an oceanic spread of shrimp, mussels, clams, calamari, and the fresh catch of the day that swims in its private resort of white wine, extra-virgin olive oil, recovering child stars, and a dash of tomato sauce ($12). Alternately, dinner desirers can furnish vacant stomach space with the veal milanese, its pan-fried slices of veal flanked by spinach ($19), or politely cluck at the waiter for an order of the chicken marsala, adorned with mushrooms, bell peppers, and fresh tomato in a marsala wine sauce ($16).

Reviews

The Riverfront Times awarded Trattoria Toscana Best Service in a Restaurant in 2007 and also reviewed the restaurant's food. Seventy-eight percent of Urbanspooners recommend the restaurant. Eight TripAdvisors give Trattoria Toscana an average rating of 3.5 owl eyes.

• That care is palpable throughout the restaurant. Our waitress on this first visit, like our waiter on the second, was solicitous without hovering, efficient without rushing. Several times as she put a plate on our table, she said, almost as a whisper, "Made from scratch." – Ian Froeb, Riverfront Times