I wonder if the word bruschettaccio comes up in Italian school spelling bees. It would be a tough one in anyone’s libero. Luckily at Ristorante Lucia, a well-established – and for the most part unreconstructed – Southern Italian restaurant in Bedford, you don’t need to worry about spelling, or pronunciation for that matter – although it’s broosk-e-TA-cho if you must. You can simply hold up the menu and point, your reward being an irresistible, classic combination of toasted bread, mozzarella, tomato, red onion and basil — Italy on a plate.
There are easier dishes to pronounce at Lucia, ones that are equally satisfying, spaghetti being a case in point. Mine came with a sauce of ripe San Marzano tomatoes and house-made meatballs, comfort food at its most soothing. In a dish of penne alla vodka, ripe tomatoes worked their magic, too, laced with cream and vodka and speckled with pancetta over quill-shaped pasta.
Opened in 2006, Lucia’s, which occupies a pretty, low-build, one-story villa, has a loyal, local following, but the food at this classic trattoria is so good that I posit it’s worth a visit from further afield.
The restaurant is divided into two rooms, the less formal one to the left as you enter, for pizza and superb house-made gelato, and to the right, the smaller, decidedly rustic restaurant “proper.” With wooden beams and a wonderful long wooden mantel, soft lighting, formally dressed tables and, best of all, a roaring fire in the grate, it is a welcoming space.
Service throughout is keen and utterly charming, returning regulars treated as friends and servers making you feel that you enjoyment is paramount.
Back to the menu and do look out for those pesky double ps and lls in pappardelle, which on the evening we visited was unfortunately a touch overcooked, so that it couldn’t quite support the slow-braised beef and porcini it was served with. This was the only dish I along with two friends tried that was not up to par.
Reverse gear and double back to another fine starter, pastuccia, a traditional polenta pie with sausage and raisins, a specialty of the town of Teramo in Abruzzo, which borders Ristorante Lucia’s owners Peter and Lucia Diana’s home region of Lazio, southeast of Rome. Their version – rich with golden raisins, chopped with spelling bee-worthy soppressata sausage and presented with a burnished gold top – was a show-stealer.
Tempting as they sounded, we skipped the salads – whenever I see “add chicken, add shrimp” to any dish I nearly always want to avoid it, because perhaps unreasonably I think it’s the chef’s job rather than mine to compose a dish, something I have to do six nights a week at home – and fast forwarded to main courses instead.
We loved the veal piccata, an exceptionally generous dish of two flattened veal fillets with a perfectly emulsified lemon sauce, sprinkled with capers and served with baby roast potatoes. Delicate fillets of sole in an egg batter with a white wine reduction and a robust, perfectly cooked (rare) New York strip steak, a special of the day, also won plaudits.
There was good drinking, too. A fair white wine selection, followed by a stronger red one, full of plummy Tuscans and even Super Tuscans to go with the meatier dishes, gave way to a tempting list of amari (Italian “bitters”). This included Amaro del Capo from Calabria, with its notes of orange and juniper – best served cold; my own personal favorite, Ramazzotti, from Milan; and the rarely seen, at least in this neck of the woods, lean and minerally Amaro Ciociaro, again hailing from the owners’ region – actually from their hometown.
For dessert, a fabulous slab of tiramisu, the size of a brick, gave lie to the old Kate Moss saying, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Because whatever it was – 500 calories? even 1,000 – I didn’t care. This did.
For more, visit ristorantelucia.com.
