Ragazza
Ragazza (Italian for girl) is a Neapolitan-style neighborhood restaurant in NOPA. The Italian inspired restaurant serves incredible pizzas, seasonal salads, antipasti, pasta, and roasts. They also have some delicious Italian wines and beers.
When I dined at Ragazza with my food tour guide friends, we all met on the outdoor patio to share a wonderful, family-style Italian meal. We left the ordering to Nicole who has tried nearly every menu item and is an expert on the art of going out to eat.
We started the meal off with fried Arancini, which are rice balls stuffed with smoked mozzarella, coated with breadcrumbs, fried, and then paired with sun-dried tomato pesto.
Another great antipasti is the warm olives seasoned with lemon and rosemary. The pitted olives shriveled like prunes and blackened like a roasted pepper. Served in an elongated casserole dish, the olive green, licorice black, cafe noir colored olives carried their own distinctive flavor, despite being seasoned with the same ingredients. This was a a fun finger-food appetizer to start off our Italian meal with a California twist.
Fresh, hand-pulled mozzarella outlined our first summer salad made of farro, corn, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and purslane. With notes of cashew and the tang of the vinaigrette, this is a great variation from an heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad.
The house favorite salad is this little gem lettuces salad with avocado, radish and green goddess dressing. Creamy but crisp in texture, it is easy to see why this is their most popular salad. But there also have great seasonal salads. For example, an escarole salad with avocado, radish, carrots & anchovy dressing. Next a mixed greens with beets, gorgonzola & pistachios.
Next came the Bucatini pasta dish with broccoli rabe, cherry tomatoes, pecorino, and topped off with fresh white anchovies, my favorite addition to a pasta dish.
Being a large group, and all obsessed with being as well-acquainted with the menu as possible, we ordered three pizzas which had a variety of sauces as well as toppings. First: Wild Nettles w/ portobello mushrooms, Olli pancetta, red onions & aged provolone. Second: Summer Squash w basil pesto, red onion, sun-dried tomatoes & ricotta. Third: Moto pizza with tomato, Calabrian chilies, mushrooms, red onion, sausage & mozzarella.
One requirement for being a Gourmet Walks tour guide is to have a sweet tooth, so of course we finished the meal off with some dessert. She shared a Meyer lemon panna cotta with raspberries. However, the star dish was the Nutella pizza topped with mascarpone and crushed amaretti bits.
The tiramisu, which means "pick me up cake" in Italian due to its coffee flavor, came served in three large square slices. The coffee dipped ladyfingers were layered in a sweet mixture of eggs, sugar, and mascarpone cheese and dusted with cocoa. Easy to taste by the spoonful, this is a great dish to pass around the table. The olive oil cake is a moist and dense Sicilian inspired cake. Rich in flavor, the freshly whipped cream on top only enhances the luscious mouth-feel texture.
