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Serving: Tuesday-Friday, noon to 2 p.m.; Tuesday-Thursday, 4:30-8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 4:30-9 p.m.; closed Sunday and Monday. Cuisine: Italian Entrée: $13-23 Scoring: Our Gourmet and The Dining Companion each grade a restaurant in six categories, for a combined total score of up to 100 points. Visit the Dining section of NewHampshire.com to read previous Our Gourmet reviews listed by town. |
The Dining Companion: Lucia’s Tavola is another one of those great Italian restaurants located in a little plaza, and while not centrally located, it’s easy to get to right off Route 13 in Brookline.
Ambiance: 8/10
OG: Cozy, which of course, means small, but in a good way. With seating for only about 30, this is an intimate place. I thought it was a nice place for a date. TDC, do you agree? 4
TDC: I do agree. I counted nine tables and early on a Saturday night there wasn’t an empty table in the place and shortly after we arrived there was a line of people waiting to be seated. 4
OG: By the way, Lucia’s doesn’t take reservations, but they do have call-ahead seating, which means you call before you leave and they have a table ready for you. I recommend it.
Appetizer: 17.5/20
OG: The bread served after we sat down was thick, rich and delicious. (They bake it on the premises twice a day). We noshed on that while we considered the appetizer menu, which had the usual assortment of antipasti, calamari and garlic bread. What caught my eye was the carcioffi alla Romana ($10), which we decided to share. The dish consists of artichoke hearts braised with herbs and garnished with roasted red peppers and, to my delight, capers. Crisp and tangy, it was a nice light bite for two. 9
We followed that with Caesar salads ($3.50), which had an unusual, almost sweet and tart dressing served over nice crisp romaine and big, crunchy croutons.
TDC: I agree that the bread was delicious. It was delivered hot and hand torn and was fantastic. The carcioffi alla Romana was tender and well seasoned. As OG mentioned, I also had a Caesar salad. I thought the dressing was a strange creamy Italian style dressing vs the Caesar dressing I was expecting. 8.5
Entrée 18/20
OG: Still in the mood for the piquant, I ordered one of Lucia’s “Opera Bar Specialities.” The underlying theme here is the opera and there are four specialties that boast names from the opera. In my case it was the Musetta ($17), which, I believe, was a character from “La Bohème.” (It’s all explained on the menu). The dish consisted of excellent homemade and perfectly cooked pappardelle — a long, wide pasta — that was in a spicy tomato sauce with what tasted like Kalamata olives with capers, anchovies, garlic and flakes of hot red pepper. You can have it with chicken or shrimp, but I had mine au naturel and it was fantastic. It had just enough heat from the red pepper. Coupled with the tangy caper/olive/anchovy mix it was a delectably tasty combination. 9
TDC: I also went with one of the Opera Bar Specialties and ordered the Violetta ($17) which is their creative take on a lasagna, made with freshly made pasta rolled paper thin, besciamalla sauce along with a light marinara sauce, tiny meatballs and a lighter portion of cheese. When it was served to me, all I saw was a charred top layer of the pasta, but once I peeled that layer off and dug into that second layer, I became a fan. The pasta was tender, the sauce was sweet with the natural flavors of the tomatoes jumping out, and the mini meatballs were divine. This is a “would order again,” but the top layer took away from a perfect score. If it came to my table like that again I would send it back. 9w
OG: If you were wondering, Violetta comes from “La Traviata.” It’s always nice to get a little knowledge along with your dinner, isn’t it?
Dessert: 15/20
OG: I was pretty excited about dessert as Lucia’s also bills itself as a pasticceria and they had a nice array of desserts in the cold case as we came in, although all weren’t offered on the dessert tray. The one I had my eye on was, however — the zuppa Inglese $(7), lady fingers drizzled with sweet vermouth and rum with a layer of custard, topped with a meringue. The meringue was just right and there was a boatload of sweet creamy custard — we could have easily shared it. 8
TDC: When the desert tray was presented to us, I chose the chocolate almond torte ($7). It was a dense cake with a chocolate ganache on top. The ganache was delicious, but the cake was very dry and I was glad I had a glass of water near by. 7
Service: 8.5/10
OG: Our server was competent, but not overly friendly. Still things came out hot and on time, so I can’t complain. 4.5
TDC: Our waitress seemed to want to be somewhere else that night, but everything was brought to our table on a timely basis and she was able to answer any questions we had. 4
Value: 18/20
OG: Lucias is a great value. Although it’s not cheap and probably not the place to go if you’re on a tight budget, the prices are reasonable and the servings are substantial. I had enough of my Musetta left over that I had a delicious and filling lunch the next day. Which just made me want to go back to Lucia’s again for dinner. 9
TDC: A couple minor hiccups won’t stop us from coming back to this great little restaurant. 9
TOTAL: 85/100
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