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| - My partner and I have walked past this restaurant many times along with myriad Christmas shoppers in Market Square. It's the sister restaurant to a Mount Lebanon location and we thought it would make a cozy New Year's Eve destination.
Il Pizzaiolo offers five different house-made pastas and the other pasta dishes they offer are from Pasta Faella, which the house claims as the best pasta in the world. Well, I don't know about all that but our pasta dishes were damn delicious.
For starters, we ordered arancini, which are ping pong ball-sized fried balls of rice, coated in breadcrumbs and lightly fried. Two were filled with creamy cheese and two were filled with salty pancetta. We've eaten arancini in Milan and these rivaled the originals, although they appeared a bit more carefully prepared here.The meal opened with a sliced round of warm, fragrant bread that had been baked in their 1000º brick oven just moments before. Just that is worth the price of admission.
My partner enjoyed Cavatelli con Rapini and I ordered Sedani alla Norma. The pasta was perfectly al dente (to be honest, mine was a smidge too al dente, but that was to my preference anyway--perhaps they have psychic chefs?). The house wine was a Nero d'Avola that was a nice compliment to the pastas although not earthshaking. The pasta dishes were expertly seasoned and generous in portion...neither of us could finish so we got to enjoy more for lunch the next day.
Our waitress, Sara was a wonderful part of our meal. She was pleasant and knowledgeable and checked on us just enough times. We sat on the first floor and were pleasantly surprised that (although it was New Years Eve) we had a table suitable for four all to ourselves. After an appetizer, soup, salad, two entrées, bread and a mezzolitro of house red, our bill (including tip) came to about $118. Every swallow was worth every dollar. We thank her and Il Pizzaiolo for a delicious welcome to 2014.
There is no doubt...we will be back. Perhaps next time to try one of those wonderful-smelling pizzas that our fellow diners couldn't stop shoveling in.
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