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After months of anticipation, the owners of Dolce Café are opening a new authentic Italian restaurant on Elm Street.
Lombardi’s Ristorante & Bar at 32 Elm St. (it has doors facing both Elm and Morse Court)—named for brothers Andrea and Daniel Lombardi, born and raised in Ischia, Italy—will open to the public next week, following a series of “soft-opening” invite-only dinners that started this Wednesday.
“We are really grateful for the community,” Andrea Lombardi told NewCanaanite.com from inside the new restaurant on Wednesday afternoon. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be opening up.”
The food will be entirely Italian, with a modern twist, according to Andrea Lombardi, who will be working primarily in the kitchen, while his brother runs front-of-house/bar.
“We want to keep our food traditional, but we also want to give it a little touch of modernity,” he said. “The carbonara and the Amatriciana pastas, they are classic, we’re not touching those dishes. But, we have food like black ink spaghetti with Sicilian shrimp which is a bit more modern like most of our contemporary dishes.”
Andrea Lombardi and Daniel Lombardi hope to bring an authentic and elegant feel to their restaurant. Credit: Valentina Baldini
All of the food will be “very simple” because in Italy, no more than three to five ingredients are put into a dish, Andrea Lombardi said.
“We want to give the Italian experience,” he said. “We are importing most of our items that we have on the menu from Italy and we get the fresh vegetables locally. Everything is the best quality you can get and all of our pastas are made daily by me.”
The food will be based on multiple regions from the North and South of Italy, so the customers will get to try a variety of Italian foods, Andrea Lombardi said.
“All the dishes will be cooked the same way as in Italy,” he said when asked how the new restaurant will differentiate itself. “We’re not going to butter the tomato sauce, which is ‘against the law’ in Italy—they will kick you out of the restaurant. We’re going to do this with simplicity. We’re not trying to have a chicken parm on the menu, because that’s not an Italian thing.”
That said, they will accommodate any requests from customers, Andrea Lombardi said.
The drinks menu includes spirits such as “Fiori” (elderflower, Prosecco, mint, lime), “Pompelmo” (white wine, Bianco aperitif, Stellare primo and grapefruit) and “Cocomero” (New World gin watermelon, Stellare secondo, cucumber, lime), all $16, as well as martinis such as “The Lombardi’s” (Angelisco Reposado, Aperol, passion fruit, lemon) and “Ischia” (Castle & Key rye whiskey, Rucolino, ginger bitters). Lombardi’s also offers champagne, Prosecco and a wide selection of white (for example, Biancolella: Superiore, Casa D’Ambra, Ischia $16/$62), red (Cabernet: Mocali, Maremma Toscana, Toscana ($7/$66) and rosé (Miss Valentine, Provence $15/$38) wines.
Daniel Lombardi called this week’s trial run “a very small soft launch” after “a long 14 months” of redesigning and fitting out the interior of the two-story space, formerly Papyrus, a stationery store.
The restaurant includes a full bar with some seating, along with the kitchen, on the first floor, with additional seating upstairs. The interior of the restaurant has a sophisticated and “elegant” feel, Daniel Lombardi said.
After so much preparation, Andrea Lombardi said he’s anxious to open to the public.
But, the brothers are ready to open because “everything we make is prepared with care,” he said. “We practiced cooking our dishes as many times as we could because we want to give the best that we can possibly give.”
Lombardi’s Ristorante & Bar is here on Instagram and its website is coming online soon.