• Reviews

The Pizza and the Pastas Makes the Cucina Worth Your While

A Cucina pizza most certainly belongs in any pantheon of the best Connecticut pizzas.

The Day

I've heard tell of people who make it a habit, whenever they're passing by the Flanders exit off Interstate 95, to be sure to swing by and pick up a pie at Pizza Cucina, even if only to take it home and tuck it in the refrigerator for some future snacking.

Pizza Cucina's thin-crust, brick oven pizza is both chewy and crispy, topped either simply, with crushed plum tomatoes, chopped garlic, olive oil and Romano cheese, or more elaborately, with goodies like buffalo chicken, shrimp scampi, spinach and gorgonzola or clams casino.

But my most recent visit to Cucina, prompted by a friend of owners Robert and Naima D'Agostino, was meant to concentrate on the rest of the menu, the pastas and salads that makes the place so much more than a just a pizzeria.

We visited on a recent weeknight, snuck past the open kitchen, and remained anonymous for most of the meal, which was a pleasant, relaxed and remarkably inexpensive treat.

We arrived early, started out with a plate of the plain focaccia, pizza bread with a garlic-laden marinara dipping sauce, sipped from a glass of the house Merlot and watched the place fill up.

One side of the little Cucina building seems to be dedicated to the busy takeout business. The other side is a pocket-sized café, two small dining rooms, one dominated by a big amusing mural on a background of bold red, as bold a red as in the flying plum tomato in the restaurant's logo.

With the black Formica-topped tables close together, it's not fancy. But it's clever and comfortable, sort of sleek, and on the night we visited, it was just about full, with families, couples and what looked like a lot of regulars hooked on Cucina's inventive, fresh and flavorful food.

We didn't order the big salads, gorgonzola with roasted chicken, $8.75, for instance, feta, $6.75, or green salad with penne pasta and roasted chicken, $7.50, since the pasta entrée we were planning on come with a side salad.

These were fine, fresh greens and some ripe tomato, but quite small and plain. The blue cheese dressing was very good, smooth and chock full of chunks of cheese.

There are plenty of pastas to choose from, although, curiously, they are not quite as clever as the pizzas. There's no comparable pasta, for instance, to the intriguing red onion white pizza with spinach, garlic and cheddar and gorgonzola cheese.

Still, it's very hard not be tempted by, for instance, the unusual Cajun Alfredo sauce with red hot peppers and cheddar, $10.95 for the plain pasta, $12.95 with chicken, or $14.95 with shrimp.

Another interesting pasta alternative is the Chicken Siena, featuring chicken, mushrooms, artichokes and bacon in an Asiago and sun-dried tomato cream sauce, $12.95, or the Arrabiata, with its hot peppers marinara with basil and sausage.

There is also chicken cacciatore, pasta with clam sauce, chicken or shrimp scampi, Mediterranean style with olives and grape tomatoes, chicken parmigiana, chicken diavolo and, most simply, meatballs in marinara sauce.

We tried the house-made lobster ravioli and found them just right, $12.95, fresh little pillows of melt-in-your-mouth pasta with plenty of tasty lobster meat. We chose the smooth and creamy vodka sauce, but you can also try them with marinara, pesto or spinach cream sauce.

Even better was an order of the pasta primavera, $10.95, 12.95 with chicken and $14.95 with shrimp. We choose the angel hair over the penne or linguini, and it was cooked perfectly.

We finished up by tasting two desserts, a moist and tasty tiramisu and an Oreo mousse cake, three layers of chocolate and white custard mousse with an Oreo cookie bottom. This was perhaps a bit too much chocolate after our carb-heavy feast.

We preferred the tiramisu, and, come to think of it, it might also make a Flanders pit stop off 95 worth your while, too.

Atmosphere: It's a takeout pizzeria on one side and a great little Italian pocket café on the other, simple and charming, with colorful bright murals that dominate the main dining room. You can smell the garlic wafting out of the cute Cape-style building at Flanders Four Corners the minute you get out of your car.

Cuisine: Pizza is a mainstay, but there's a thorough menu of interesting pastas, as well as salads, calzones and wraps. Beer and wine is available.
Service: Friendly and accommodating.
Prices: Pizzas $8.50 to $12.95; pasta entrees, including a small side salad, from $10.95 to $14.95.
Credit cards: Major cards accepted.
Reservations: No.
Handicapped access: Not Available.