City Beat

Diner: Mangia, Mangia Review By Craig Bida

Pitrelli's serves up a taste of the Old Country in Mason
When it comes to Italian restaurants, I am definitely hard to please. Three-quarters Italian, my blood runs thick from Calabria and Apulia in the deep Italian south -- a vibrant, sunburned land where the food and wine are heady and strong. Put me in an Italian restaurant, and I can't help but measure everything against the countless, savory, home-cooked meals of my Italian-American childhood: slow-simmered garlicky meat sauces, hand-cut pasta, sublime meatballs smothered in sauce.

What hope could any restaurant have against this heritage, against a lifetime of sacred family recipes and food lore passed down from my great-grandmother? With her thick accent, strong will and industrious hands, she created for her family in America a small piece of the old country -- raising basil and tomatoes on her porch, cranking out homemade pasta nearly every day of her life and vigorously pinching the cheeks of my brother, sister and me every time she saw us. Continued...

More reviews...

AOL CityGuideCity Week MagazineHome