A Happy Accident in Old Town: RARE Italian, Fort Collins

We hadn’t planned on this stop. After a long day watching the Blue Knights rehearse, we wandered into Old Town Fort Collins looking for dinner, half-expecting a wait or a menu that would mean a lot of “let me check with the kitchen.” Instead, we found RARE Italian, an elevated Italian steakhouse tucked into a beautiful old bank building on South College Avenue, and walked right in — no wait at all.

What could have been just a lucky dinner turned into exactly the kind of experience I want Gouldilocks to highlight: a restaurant that treats dietary needs as normal, not a hassle.

(And yes — this was the same Fort Collins weekend as the Canvas Stadium story [LINK-TO-STADIUM-POST]. The rocks and I had already had our moment. Dinner, thankfully, required no landscaping.)

Why We Went Light

We deliberately ate here before the Blue Knights show rather than after, and it wasn’t just about avoiding that sluggish, overfed feeling. When you live with POTS, MCAS, and hEDS (with Sjögren’s likely along for the ride), a heavy meal before an event isn’t a comfort question. It’s a symptom calculation.

Digestion pulls blood toward your gut — blood a POTS body already struggles to send upward — so a big dinner right before hours of sitting, standing, cheering, and climbing stadium stairs is a recipe for dizziness and a pounding heart, not just a food coma. Rich and aged foods carry a histamine load that MCAS treats as a personal insult (dry-aged steak, magnificent as it is, is essentially a histamine time capsule). And hEDS guts tend to run on their own slow, unpredictable schedule, which a large meal does not improve.

So we saved the steakhouse side of the menu for another visit and leaned into pasta and lighter shareable dishes. We left satisfied but not weighed down — and my body actually had the resources left to enjoy the show. That’s the math most people never see: not what you’re eating, but when, how much, and what your evening will demand of you afterward.

A Bit About RARE

RARE draws its inspiration from the steakhouses of Italy, built around dry-aged meats and fresh, house-made pasta, and it’s picked up national recognition: in 2025 it was named by USA Today to a list of the best steakhouses in America. The centerpiece is the on-site dry-aging program, visible in a glass-walled case near the entrance where whole cuts hang for a minimum of 21 days — some much longer — developing that deep, funky dry-aged flavor. It’s worth pausing at the case on your way in or out: part butcher shop, part science experiment, and a good visual reminder of how much time goes into what eventually lands on your plate.

The Meal

The vegan eggplant parm (David’s pick). A gorgeous stack: crisped eggplant rounds layered with melted vegan cheese, fresh basil, and a bright San Marzano-style tomato sauce, finished with shredded vegan parm. It didn’t taste like a substitution; it tasted like the dish they wanted to serve.

The truffle ravioli (shared). The standout of the night. Delicate house-made pasta tossed in a light truffle butter with fresh shaved truffle, chives, and cracked pepper. I have gluten sensitivities, and interestingly, their Italian-flour pasta didn’t trigger my usual reaction the way American wheat does. That’s a pattern some of us in this community have noticed with European flours — but to be very clear: this is a sensitivity observation, not medical advice, and it is not a safe approach for anyone with celiac disease. If you need a true gluten-free option, RARE offers GF pasta as a straight swap, no drama.

The carbonara (our friend Luke’s order). Rich, glossy, studded with crispy guanciale and finished with a generous snow of parmesan: a classic done well.

The bread. Can we talk about the bread? Warm, impossibly airy inside with a shattering crust, served with a whipped, slightly tangy butter. And yes, they have a gluten-free bread option too, which is not something you can take for granted at a steakhouse-forward menu like this.

The Drinks: Senza, Done Right

Here’s a detail I loved: RARE’s non-alcoholic drinks aren’t buried at the bottom of the cocktail list as an afterthought. They get their own named section of the menu — Senza, Italian for “without” — and it reads like someone actually cared. Athletic non-alcoholic beers, a zero-proof Peach Smash built on Ritual whiskey alternative, an NA Bellini with GRÜVI dry secco, and the one David and I both ordered: the Mock Mule.

Ginger beer, lime juice, and a tart cherry simple syrup. That cherry note is what makes it — it turns a standard ginger-lime mule into something rounder and a little moody, and it was genuinely fantastic. We didn’t order it as a consolation prize; we ordered it because it was the most interesting thing on the drinks menu. I am absolutely attempting a version at home. (Tart cherry simple syrup is now on my grocery list. Consider yourself warned.)

This matters for the same reason everything else in this review matters. For a lot of us with chronic conditions, alcohol isn’t a “maybe later” — it’s a hard no because of medication interactions, dysautonomia, flare triggers, or a body that simply can’t spare the resources. A real zero-proof list means you get to participate in the ritual of a nice dinner drink instead of asking for a water and watching everyone else toast. Senza — without — but not left out. That’s the whole Gouldilocks thesis in one menu section.

The Accessibility Notes

This is the part of the review that matters most to me. Great food is table stakes; the real test is how a restaurant handles the invisible stuff.

Staff knowledge: Our server knew both the gluten-free and vegan modifications cold. She didn’t have to disappear to “go ask” — she just knew, and answered with the kind of easy confidence that lets you actually relax and order.

Menu transparency: The printed menu marks GF, GFO (gluten-free option), and VG (vegan) items directly, so you’re not guessing or interrogating your server line by line.

Cross-contact awareness: Both the vegan and gluten-sensitive orders at our table came out correctly and confidently, with no hesitation about ingredients.

Ambiance and seating: We walked in without a reservation on a busy night and were seated immediately, with low sensory stress and easy in and out.

The Restroom (Yes, Really)

Restroom accessibility almost never makes it into restaurant reviews. For a lot of us in the hidden-disabilities world, it’s a real factor in whether a place works at all. RARE quietly does a lot right here:

An air filter running in the restroom: a small thing that matters a lot if you’re managing MCAS, chemical sensitivity, asthma, or are immunocompromised. It also makes a small enclosed space feel less claustrophobic if you’re sensitive to that.

Fragrance-free, sensitive-skin soap: no perfumey blast when you wash your hands — a genuine relief for anyone with MCAS or skin reactivity.

A properly accessible stall: real space, not an afterthought. That matters not just for wheelchair users but for anyone with a mobility aid, a service animal, or a caregiver helping them.

Low lighting and low noise: no harsh fluorescents, no roaring hand dryer. Easy to overlook until you’re the person for whom bright light triggers a migraine or a sudden loud noise spikes your heart rate.

The whole space has a bit of vintage charm — old black-and-white tile, a framed photo — that makes it feel like a real room rather than a utilitarian afterthought, which somehow makes all of the above land even better.

Why It’s Worth the Stop

RARE Italian is technically a steakhouse (the dry-aged meat case by the entrance makes that clear before you even sit down), but it’s doing some of the most thoughtful gluten-free and vegan accommodation I’ve seen in a restaurant that isn’t built around those diets as its identity — with a zero-proof drink list to match. That’s the sweet spot: food that’s genuinely good and doesn’t make you feel like an inconvenience.

Dinner daily, 4–9:15pm