There’s red sauce downstairs, while upstairs in the lounge the acts sometimes go a bit blue. You’re drinking affordable Italian wine with dinner and then maybe a nice cocktail above.
This is the new Italian restaurant Pulcinella!, and its sister concept, the Original Nite Cap, holding down one corner of St. Bernard Avenue.
Pulcinella! co-owner Bella Blue (center) chats with diners as Friday dinner gets started at her Italian restaurant. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Smoked pork steak with herbs and peppers takes center stage at Italian restaurant Pulcinella! in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Burlesque performer Gaea Lady swings her red cape around her body as she dances at The Original Nite Cap in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
There’s an old school essence to Italian supper and a show that I love, and also a high coziness factor all around. But the restaurant is not the red-checkered tablecloth type, nor is the lounge about Rat Pack-style crooners.
Old school, young energy
Pulcinella! features dining downstairs and while the bar upstairs, The Original Nite Cap, features burlesque, comedy and other performances. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Between our local Creole-Italian classics and more upscale renditions of Italian cuisine, Pulcinella! lands in middle. It’s a trattoria, with a straightforward menu, reasonable prices and generous portions that often verge on family style, giving a solid second meal of leftovers.
Were it older, you’d be looking around for dusty clusters of plastic grapes and Chianti bottle candleholders. But Pulcinella! feels simultaneously homey and more modern; it’s an old-school template enlivened with younger energy.
Friends greet each other by the bar at Pulcinella!, the Italian restaurant on St. Bernard Avenue in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
There’s a long bar for dining or just drinks. An alcove in the corner feels like your nonna added a few more chairs to the dining room table for a Sunday supper. All around there are references to the namesake Pulcinella character (from the commedia dell’arte tradition), glowing from illuminated panels and dancing across the menu.
Husband and wife team Andrew Principe and Bella Blue run the Italian restaurant Pulcinella! and The Original Nite Cap bar upstairs. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Pulcinella! co-owner Bella Blue holds the child of a regular customer during dinner at the St. Bernard Avenue restaurant. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
All over the place, in nearly constant motion, is the woman with the brilliant hair, Bella Blue, the burlesque performer, teacher and impresario. She’s a co-owner of the restaurant and bar along with her husband Andrew Principe and business partner J.D. Solomon. Principe is also a partner at the French Quarter restaurant Palm & Pine, which is where the couple first met during one of Blue’s burlesque brunch shows. Sometimes romance really does unfold like song lyrics.
Pulcinella! shares some of Palm & Pine’s spirit of inclusive welcome. Since opening late last year, the restaurant has drawn a clientele that feels as diverse as any place in the city.
On Mondays, it seems at least half the diners are people from other restaurants and bars, out for supper together on their night off. Maybe it has something to do with the half price wine bottle specials on Mondays too.
The perfect Pulcinella! meal
The meatball is a mainstay at the Italian restaurant Pulcinella! in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
To line up the perfect meal here, start with a cocktail, maybe the Harlequin (mezcal and tequila softened by carrot, blood orange and dill) or the Handsome Gentleman (pecan bourbon, amaro and bitters). The bar gives zero-proof drinks equal billing.
Bartender Kimberly Patton-Bragg mixes drinks at Italian restaurant Pulcinella! on St. Bernard Avenue in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
The Handsome Gentleman (left) and Harlequin are on the cocktail list at Pulcinella! on St. Bernard Avenue in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Get the meatball, a baseball-sized orb strung with herbs, draped with ricotta in a sauce that’s a little sweet, a bit chunky. The butter-crisp focaccia will start disappearing fast, but try to save some for the next course.
That’s the oyster artichoke soup (you’re splitting all of this, so get two spoons). This is the most New Orleansy dish on the menu but done differently than what has become the local standard. Ripples of oil and cream swirl over the surface around reefs of fried oysters that burst with the oyster juice still within. The soup is creamy and rich but tastes light with fennel and lemon flavors bouncing off the brine.
Oyster artichoke soup at Pulcinella! is topped with fried oysters and crackers. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
For the main act, pair the bucatini with the smoked pork steak.
The pasta is all’amatriciana, amplified by both thick bacon chunks and nduja, the soft Calabrian sausage that seems to melt its meaty red pepper spice into the sauce. Don’t try to finish this, because you’ll want some for tomorrow, and the pork steak commands your attention at its side.
It has a smokiness and texture halfway to barbecue, but there’s still a crisp edge. The contrast of luxurious slow-rendered fat and fresh herbs and peppers slices over the top make this platter-sized dish a joy to unpack. Creamed broccoli rabe rounds it out.
Bucatini all’amatriciana is part of menu at Italian restaurant Pulcinella! on St. Bernard Avenue. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Smoked pork steak with herbs and peppers takes center stage at Italian restaurant Pulcinella! in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
You can tell there’s a chef’s hand at play (that’s Matty Hayes), though this isn’t overly-showy Italian food. After all, the show is upstairs.
Time for a Nite Cap
You’ll go outside to find a separate entrance and a steep staircase up to the Original Nite Cap, which is the resurrection of a bar of the same name from the 1960s, the crew tells me. The schedule of shows includes comedy and live music, DJs, karaoke and dance (some have a cover, others are free admission).
A red curtain covers a window at The Original Nite Cap on St. Bernard Avenue, a bar that hosts burlesque and other performances. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Burlesque performer Gaea Lady begins a dance at the Original Nite Cap bar as people who’d just had dinner downstairs at Pulcinella! continue the night upstairs. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Burlesque performers, from left to right, La Reina, Ariana Amour, Bella Blue, and Mia Moore get dressed backstage before their show at The Original Nite Cap in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Blue headlines a weekly Friday night show, called Whiskey & Rhinestones Burlesque, starting at 7 p.m., and invites a changing cast of other performers. One night, to a crowd of some early bird diners from downstairs, burlesque enthusiasts and a bartender’s mom, they put on a show that’s fun and funny, racy not raunchy. There’s howling, purring and lots of smiles and laughter.
Stairs lead up to the Original Nite Cap, located above the Italian restaurant Pulcinella!, on St. Bernard Avenue in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Pulcinella! co-owner Bella Blue walks up the stairs to The Original Nite Cap where she hosts a weekly burlesque show each Friday. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Chris Granger
Through the course of one evening here, I watched Blue work the dining room, work the sound board, work the mic as emcee for her fellow dancers and then work her own burlesque magic. She calls this venture a dream come true; the hustle to make it so is clear.
The interplay of the upstairs/downstairs action makes this place feel like more than a restaurant and more than a bar. It feels like the classic dinner and a show combo, with a timely modern makeover.
Pulcinella! and the Original Nite Cap
1300 St. Bernard Ave., 504-221-1560
Thu.-Mon. 5:30-9:30 p.m. (restaurant); 6 p.m.-’til (bar)
Downstairs, it’s Italian food at Pulcinella!, a restaurant mixing a homey, old school feel with young energy and modern style. Upstairs, it’s …