Best Local Italian Restaurant

The Lucatelli’s facility has been an Ithaca culinary fixture since 1967, when it was founded as the Char Pit. These days, Giuliano Lucatelli holds forth cheerfully in the kitchen of Lucatelli’s Ristorante, as did his father for years before him, with his son, Carmen, working alongside him, producing heaping platters of fine, classic southern Italian food. It’s one of our favorite too-tired/hassled/crabby-to-cook, comfort food restaurants in the area. Low lighting, pervasive bonhomie, and a gracious host welcome guests. Tables are far enough apart to encourage private conversation, and a wall of windows faces out on a small fountain garden, taking guests’ minds away from the commercial clutter of old Route 13. While we usually eat in the main dining room, on review night we had the bar/lounge tables to ourselves. A painted mural depicting Roman architectural highlights covers most of one wall, along with portraits of the founders, and posters and photos of Italian-American heroes – crooner Frank Sinatra, and boxer Primo Carnera among them. An attractive young woman tended bar that night, to the apparent delight of three gentlemen enjoying dinner and a brandy at the bar in good company. Our waitress, professional and knowledgeable, proffered a wine list featuring a good selection of Italian potables, as well as some from California, Australia, and the Finger Lakes. We chose a Montepulciano from an offering of four Italian reds available by the glass, and were delighted with the choice. A loaf of warm bread and a small vat of butter made its way to our table before we made our way to the salad bar, one of the most interesting in the area, with freshly made soup, pickled vegetables and mushrooms, plenty of Gorgonzola to sprinkle on salads, and lots of other goodies. Back at our table, slices of fresh mozzarella flanked a platter of sweet, just-roasted peppers; a bowl of white beans and greens swam in a stock laced with plenty of garlic (begone, winter colds!); steamed mussels danced in a chunky tomato sauce. We looked longingly at the hot antipasto appetizer choice – clams, mussels, shrimp, peppers, and eggplant parmigiana – but realized we’d have to end the meal right there, and there were so many other dishes we wanted to try. On an ordinary night out, we generally opt for Giulli’s spiced-just-right eggplant parmigiana with homemade tomato sauce and his homemade gnocchi lunghi with Italian sausage. Gnocchi lunghi are nothing like the standard dumplingy potato gnocchi, which are also made right there in Lucatellis’ kitchen, but more like spaghetti on steroids. Abandon your Atkins diet, all ye who enter there! He makes his own ravioli and fettuccini as well. We’ve also enjoyed the restaurant’s homemade lasagna, manicotti, and cannelloni Florentine, the latter stuffed with spinach and ricotta cheese, and absolutely delicious swimming in a well flavored white sauce. For the more Atkins-minded, there are three choices of prime rib portion, as well as New York strip and filet mignon, a good selection of veal, chicken, and pork chop dishes, shrimp, lobster, sole, and the house special, linguini a la peschatora, with fresh clams, mussels, shrimp, and scallops cooked in marinara sauce. This evening, however, we feasted upon veal rollatini, with prosciutto and fontina cheese, tender and nicely spiced, served with a full-meal-sized bowl of pasta in Lucatelli’s own tomato sauce. (The sides at Lucatelli’s are more than generous.) Pasta con quattro formaggio’s rigatoni swam in a bowl of cream sauce enriched with fontina, gruyere, gorgonzola and Romano – the Italian take on mac and cheese, satisfying to the nth degree. Its side dish was a veritable vat of just-cooked peas and portabella mushrooms. We paced ourselves, but the food seemed to be getting ahead of us, and we hadn’t begun to think of dessert. Our waitress, sensing our distress, offered to doggy-bag the leftovers and we took her up on it. A dessert cart featured a lemon-almond cake, and a dense chocolate confection. We were also offered the homemade tiramisu and spumoni, but opted instead for the over-the-top Tartuffo, a baseball-sized hunk of ice cream dipped in hardened dark chocolate and served with whipped cream and a cherry, and one of Lucatelli’s homemade cannolis. Perfect! Lucatelli’s also offers an after-dinner menu of espressos and cappuccinos. The restaurant, located at 205 Elmira Road, serves dinners from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. seven days a week. For reservations and information, call 273-0777.