XL Food & Drink: The Main Course

Nonna's Cucina

Small Italian restaurant heading for bigger, better things

By Dale Rice
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT CRITIC
Thursday, November 09, 2006

One of the great delights of being a restaurant critic is discovering a place with immense potential that's just about to cross the threshold to bigger and better things.

That's the way I see Nonna's Cucina, a simple, unassuming, three-nights-a-week Italian trattoria a block off the square in Georgetown.

David Osmar and his late mother, Frances Bongiovanni, opened the restaurant together after Osmar was laid off from a job in technology and decided to follow his passion — cooking — in his next career.

They bought a sandwich shop in a 100-year-old building and kept the Monday-to-Friday lunch business as a reliable revenue stream, slowly expanding the offerings by adding items such as calzones and pizzas.

The first year, Nonna's Cucina was open only on Friday nights. That, too, has expanded, and for the past year the restaurant has been open for an upscale dinner Thursday through Saturday.

"We're hoping to open more and more as Georgetown grows," he says.

In the first year, Osmar cooked his Italian fare — which he learned from his grandmother — on a small electric burner. Now he has a full kitchen that allows him to make even his desserts in-house.

Later this month, he's upgrading the decor, painting the walls and adding new drapes and tablecloths.

"When you're a mom-and-pop operation, you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time," he says. "I'd rather apologize for the decor than the food."

He certainly doesn't need to apologize for the fare.

The calamari ($9), long strips of squid that had been breaded by hand and fried to golden perfection, were so tender and delicious that the marinara and aïoli sauces served with them weren't even needed for a flavor boost.

The saganaki ($8), a Greek specialty, featured a round of cheese flamed with brandy at the table and served with sauteed garlic spinach (enticingly heavy on the garlic) and slices of rustic bread.

With starters like that, it's not surprising that reservations are essential; the small restaurant turns away 20 to 30 diners on many Friday nights.

For the main course, a tasty, tender, ancho-coffee-rubbed beef tenderloin filet ($23) was accompanied by asparagus and horseradish-garlic mashed potatoes. The cremini sauce was the disappointment, tasting more like a bottled brown gravy than a fresh mushroom sauce.

The wild mushroom manicotti ($16) was made with fresh, al dente pasta enclosing cheese and mushrooms. It was garnished with a variety of mushrooms and lightly drizzled with a garlic-curry-cream sauce that I craved more of. The manicotti were presented in a sophisticated way, with one crossing the top of the other, on a bed of sautéed spinach.

For dessert, the Italian cream cake ($6) was a tall, multilayer confection that wasn't overloaded with icing (just the way I prefer these cakes) and an apple Bavarian ($7), similar to a thick wedge of pie, served with butterscotch schnapps-cinnamon ice cream. Both were lovely.

With friendly and attentive service to round out the dining experience, Nonna's Cucina has a rosy future. The demand, I'm convinced, soon will be enough for the restaurant to open more nights.

drice@statesman.com; 445-3859