Dubai: It isn't one of the easiest places to reach if you don't know where to park, but once you're there, you couldn't ask for a better locale.
Tucked away at the rear of Dorra Bay in Dubai Marina, Piazza Italia, a new Italian restaurant, overlooks the canal with its alfresco seating occupying the end of a huge terrace where children can safely play. The restaurant has 150 seats in all.
"It can't get more authentic than this," says the restaurant's Italian co-owner Lorenzo Ciccotelli, explaining how the cuisine prepared by chefs Massimo and Juri are straight out of the kitchens of native Pescara or Genoa in Italy.
For example, the Timballino Vegetariano, he will tell you, comprises layers of home-made crepes and vegetables in bechamella sauce, mozzarella and parmesan cheese, served ‘gratinated' in terracotta bowls in true Pescara style.
Steeped in History
As you sit waiting to sample the fare, the mats at the table give you interesting history lessons with their did-you-know nuggets on how pasta owes its existence to the Etruscans, the first Italians who conquered Rome in 800 BC, or how tomatoes came to be used in pizzas only in 1850.
The thin-crust tomato-based pizzas made in a wood-burning oven come in a wide variety from the plain Margherita to Golosa comprising beef sausages. There's a whole set of mozzarella-based pizzas and folded pizzas too.
But none, like the pastas, has chicken in them.
In the pasta section, it's clearly the Linguine Alla Pescatora that steals the show. An old-style seafood pasta, it is cooked with shrimp, squid, calamari, octopus and mussels with cherry tomatoes, olives and capers.
According to chef Massimo, some of the items on the menu, while being traditional, also have an innovative twist. The Arancia Meccanica grilled salmon steak, for instance, is topped with orange reduction and eggplant rolls stuffed with goat cheese.
Most of the items are in the price range of Dh45-Dh55 while some are more expensive.
