Lucia Ristorante

1825 W. North Ave.
Bucktown
773.292.9700
Italian

I was craving Italian food so we went to this cute restaurant on North Ave. I had heard from multiple people that the food was good so I figured I would give it a shot. You walk in and there are two sides, the deli and the restaurant. We went to the restaurant section. It was a very small room that felt like a dining room in an apartment. But it was quaint and cozy, with the walls painted like you were sitting in Italy and with Italian music lightly playing through the speakers.

The waitress brought out a basket with two kinds of bread. One of my favorite parts of Italian restaurants is the bread. There is something so enjoyable about dipping bread in good olive oil with parmesan and pepper. YUM! And I was very impressed with Lucia's bread. It was warm and soft--the best kind!

We ordered the grilled calamari for an appetizer. The flavor was rich with the "grill taste" and perfected with the slight squeeze of lemon. The tentacle parts were more tender than the rings, but overall I was quite pleased.

For my entree I had the gnocchi alla romana. It was gnocchi in tomato sauce with basil and parmesan. The gnocchi was a little on the chewy side-often sticking to the roof of my mouth, but the flavor was good. The sauce was very light, the basil was fresh, and there was a slight sweet aftertaste that was pleasant but not overwhelming.

And for dessert I had my favorite Italian sweet, tartufo. I am very particular about my tartufo. This one was a mound of chocolate gelato with an ameretto gelato middle, covered with shaved chocolate powder and rolled in chunks of more chocolate. Although it was a lot of chocolate, I still enjoyed it. I prefer the kind of tartufo with almonds in it, but this was decent.

Overall, Lucia was a cute place and I would definitely go back there. There were so many mouth-watering things on the menu that I want to try and the prices were reasonable. I also would like to go back and try out the deli side.