Chef Giovanni Novella left the kitchen at Bar Corallini to open Osteria Novella, just west of campus. The space (most recently Novanta) is about where the old Party Port parking lot used to be for about 80 years. It’s not the Greenbush, where Josie’s and Amato’s once plied their red-saucy trade and where the Italian Workmen’s Club and the Greenbush Bar still sit. But it is, in today’s terms, near west, and it feels right.
The Amalfi Coast is a short hop across Italy’s Sorrento peninsula from Torre del Greco, Giovanni Novella’s hometown. Osteria Novella takes its cues from Amalfi’s globally renowned seaside cuisine, though to be clear, this is more than a seafood restaurant. There’s a nice selection of antipasti, a handful of pastas and wood fired pizzas, and a generous number of vegan options, including dishes made with vegan pepperoni, vegan ricotta, and cashew parmesan.
What might have been the most successful dish I tasted was a special, a mix of lobster and shrimp with an herby tomato sauce. The big hunks of tender shellfish were matched with fusilloni, a heftier version of the corkscrew-shaped fusilli. It may not line up with the light and sunny Amalfi aesthetic, but I wanted bread to swipe through the leftover sauce.
I enjoyed the scallops as well, one of a small number of pasta-less main dishes at Osteria Novella. A grain or two of sand wasn’t enough to detract from the scallops’ delicacy, and a blend of sautéed and roasted vegetables over a red pepper hummus almost convinced me it actually was spring and not whatever that mid-March weather was.
Pasta is, as you might expect, central to the menu here. Pappardelle ai porcini features roasted porcini mushroom ragout and Italian sausage, but it’s not a sausage dish. Loads of porcinis are tossed into chewy pappardelle with chunks of the surprisingly funky sausage, creating a very umami experience.
The cavatelli with cubes of mortadella — Italy’s “fancy bologna” will always be catnip for me — was cooked to a perfect bite, the saltiness broken up just so by a streak of creamy stracciatella. You can also find the mortadella on the excellent crostone, a starter that’s sort of a meaty bruschetta on sourdough rounds that are crusty but not too crusty.
Osteria Novella’s popularity means that reservations are probably a good idea, but the menu offers a spectrum of dinner experiences from composed to casual. You could show up with your bestie and cozy up to the bar with a pepperoni pizza and the finocchio salad. As with his pasta, Novella’s pizza crust has just the right amount of chew, and the hot honey’s sweet and spice on the pepperoni pizza is balanced well.
There’s always a drinks-and-nibbles option, too, thanks to the dual crispy spheres of eggplant fritters (a starter akin to arancini) and zeppole (a dessert that’s basically doughnut holes crossed with cannoli). Accompany them with Novella’s house-made limoncello, which I sampled in the citrusy Novella Negroni. It reminded me that for an Amalfi menu, there’s far less citrus than I’d have predicted.
You’re forgiven if you order the budino from Osteria Novella’s dessert menu just to compare it to the budino at the other Osteria in town, but note that this dark chocolate budino and Papavero’s famed butterscotch budino are two different experiences. Novella’s is dense and fudgy and, with its richness, almost demands sharing. Its delicate sprinkling of smoked sea salt does a lot of heavy lifting; I wouldn’t have minded more.
Bar Corallini, in which Novella maintains an ownership share, has always been popular and fans have followed him across town to his eponymous dining room. Prepare for a loud experience, even with a dining room that bends around its open kitchen into two distinct zones. But then, Italian dining in America has long tended toward the boisterous, and this too feels right.
Osteria Novella
2903 University Ave.
608-230-6877; osterianovella.com
4-9 p.m. Mon.-Thurs., 4-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat.
$9-$36
Dining and Cooking