A Taste of Italy

Pasta, sausage, cannoli, oh my — The 330 is filled with comforting Italian cuisine. Whether it's a meatball in marinara or a unique deconstructed lasagna, these dishes are as cozy as they are satisfying.

by Kelly Petryszyn and Alexandra Sobczak  //  photos by Tylar Calhoun

Souvenir Plate

Tony Ly savored the trip he took to Rome, Florence and Venice, Italy, in 2018. He tried Gorgonzola dolce while there, and the first bite left him speechless.

“I couldn’t really speak,” he says. “It was like, This is so good. I’ve never had anything like this before.”

He was shocked at how different authentic Italian food was from Americanized versions. He knows not everyone will have the chance to travel across the ocean to try the cuisine, so he aims to bring that genuine experience to Canton as one of the new owners of Lucca Downtown, the restaurant named after the Tuscan region of Lucca.

“The food out there is phenomenal,” says Ly, who took over Lucca in March and also owns Basil Asian Bistro in Canton and Wooster. “We try to keep our menu as true to … traditional kind of cuisine you’d find as if you were over there yourself.”

His team serves its version of Gorgonzola dolce ($19), and it’s one of Lucca’s most popular dishes. It features a cream sauce with Gorgonzola, an Italian blue cheese, over house-made bucatini pasta.

The dish begins with sauteed parsnips, which Ly describes as sweet and a way to cut the richness of the Gorgonzola. Then the sauce is made with heavy cream, bacon fat, pancetta and Gorgonzola, which naturally carries a subtler aroma than common blue cheese.

“A lot of people think blue cheese is very pungent,” he says. “Gorgonzola is much more delicate.”

Chefs reduce the sauce, and the ingredients emulsify together, he says. That’s when the pasta comes in.

The bucatini — think hollow spaghetti noodles — are made fresh with Italian flour in a machine imported from Italy. “The noodles are going to be delicate but still chewy,” he says. “You can certainly tell the difference your first bite.”

Truffle butter tops the dish, delivering a decadent flavor. Altogether, the ingredients meld into a source of fine dining comfort food, which is what makes it a standout on the menu, Ly says. He wants guests’ experiences to be as impactful as his was the first time he tried it.

“The noodles really carry and deliver the sauce,” he says. “It’s a dish that you’re going to remember for a long time.” AS

228 Fourth St. NW, Canton, luccadowntown.com

Slow Build

Cafe Toscano’s osso bucco subtly piques interest.

“Once one goes out in the dining room early in the night, customers see it without even noticing it, subconsciously,” says Mark Davis, owner of the Aurora restaurant. “You look, What is that? I want to try it.”

The tented grilled asparagus turns heads with its pop of color and tall triangular shape, but what’s underneath — a braised pork shank in an irresistible demi-glace over creamy risotto — makes for a satisfying, hearty and indulgent meal ($27).

There’s no red sauce, so some may not know that osso bucco is a traditional Italian dish.

“That’s a dish you would see served at a cafe in Tuscany,” Davis says, “especially if it’s one of those cafes that breaks down the whole pig.”

Cafe Toscano built its version around a pork shank, which comes from the pig’s kneecap. Davis is committed to sourcing it from a Michigan farm and an Ohio farm. “They treat their animals slightly different. I swear you can tell it in the product,” he says. Both deliver such high-quality meat that he stops serving the dish if they’re out.

The meat is enhanced by a careful cooking method that involves paying close attention. First, chefs cook the pork shank with chopped carrots, onions, celery, seasonings and veal stock. They deglaze it with a dry white wine to create the demi-glace osso bucco sauce. It simmers for four to six hours until the sauce is divinely rich and the meat softens.

To absorb that sauce, chefs whip up a risotto by slow cooking Arborio rice in chicken stock, Romano, salt and pepper. Just like the pork, the texture is key — so chefs keep a close eye to ensure it’s not too soupy or crunchy.

Each element is just right and a lovely surprise for diners that order the dish on an impulse.

“It melts in your mouth,” Davis says of the risotto. “The meat gets tender. It falls off the bone.” KP

215 W. Garfield Road, Aurora, mycafetoscano.com

Well Rounded

Spotting a white lasagna on a menu at an Italian restaurant is like finding a unicorn, and discovering white lasagna rolls is practically unheard of.

Ken Stewart’s Tre Belle in Bath amazes with its baked lasagna rounds ($32), which are six artful deconstructed rolls of lighter white lasagna instead of one hefty red sauce-drenched brick.

Each layer packs in distinct wow-inducing flavors and is carefully prepared by hand from scratch. First, a chef cuts up sheets of soft, moist Ohio City Pasta, which are handmade in Cleveland. Then, a chef sweats down fall farm-fresh thinly sliced zucchinis and diced eggplant with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh thyme. That goes into a mixture of creamy burrata, ricotta and shaved Parmesan. It’s slathered onto the pasta and rolled into striking tasty white-and-green pinwheels.

“When you sweat the zucchini, you really get a good flavor of thyme and … earthiness from the fresh vegetables,” says executive sous chef Dale Sampson.

The rolls are delicately arranged in a baking dish and flooded with a house white sauce that perfectly matches the rich burrata. For the sauce, a chef mixes shallots, garlic, seasonings and heavy cream, reduces it, strains the shallots out, cooks it down and adds Parmesan as it cools.

“It turns out really nice, a creamy Parmesan garlicky sauce,” he says. “It’s similar to a bechamel, but it’s a little bit fuller.”

Thinly sliced zucchini tops the rolls in addition to shaved Parmesan that bubbles and darkens as it cooks. It’s garnished with dollops of creme fraiche that add acidity to balance natural sugars in the veggies and a chopped basil and parsley blend plucked from Tre Belle’s on-site garden and is served with house bread and salad. The entree is light enough to split as an appetizer, but you likely won’t want to share these decadent wonders.

“The smooth creaminess of the burrata with that rich white sauce and the crispness of the Parmesan on top, it has a bunch of different textures,” Sampson says. “There’s really great flavor.” KP

1911 N. Cleveland Massillon Road, Akron, kenstewartstrebelle.com

Big Delivery

Diners are accustomed to bite-sized meatballs, so when they order the meatball plate at 3 Palms Pizzeria & Bakery, they’re flabbergasted by the single 6 1/2-ounce behemoth that arrives.

“When people come for the first time, they say, We’ll get a couple meatballs. It’s like, Why don’t you start with one?” says head chef Chad Rzymek at 3 Palms in Hudson.

Choose from three giant options: meat, vegetarian and chicken and turkey, which all start with a base of house-baked cubed bread, onion, salt, garlic, breadcrumbs, chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley and Grana Padana cheese. Then pick marinara or pistachio pesto. The most popular, also Rzymek’s fave, is traditional meat ($8.75) with marinara. Each day, chefs combine beef, veal and pork to form meatballs that are hefty for a juicier bite.

“We want to keep freshness and quality as high as we can,” Rzymek says.

The marinara is made with onions, garlic, spices, basil, other herbs and San Marzano tomatoes, which are imported from Italy for their high-liquid content that creates a succulent sauce. It also goes great with the Impossible burger vegetarian selection ($9.25), which is plant-based yet tastes and cooks like real meat.

An adventurous combo is the lighter chicken and turkey that pairs well with the bold pistachio pesto ($8.75, plus 50 cents for pesto).

Fresh house-roasted rotisserie chicken gets mixed with ground turkey, basil and fennel that brings a deep flavor. The pesto offers a strong contrast with fresh-picked basil, Parmesan, extra-virgin olive oil, raw garlic and toasted pistachio.

“It’s got more of an herbal taste. There’s a ton of basil,” Rzymek says.

While he’s seen diners eat a few — including a bodybuilder who ate two meatball plates and pasta with two meatballs, a whopping 26 ounces of meat — he recommends splitting one as an appetizer or making it an entree with a side salad like many regulars do.

Either way, Rzymek says this gargantuan dish is best enjoyed in small bites with its accompaniments, fresh house-made crusty ciabatta and house-made rich ricotta, along with a sauce or two.

“It’s getting the perfect little bite of meatball, cheese, sauce and bread,” he says. “It’s all meant to go together. That’s what I think of when I think of classic Italian.” KP

60 Village Way, Hudson, 3palmspizzeria.com

Triple Delights

Get all of the crunchy and creamy goodness of a traditional cannoli and so much more flavor in a showstopping trio that catches your eye at the Twisted Olive in Green.

“It’s got a beautiful aesthetic,” says operations manager Devin Hurd. “There’s always kind of a, Oh, that’s fun.”

The cannoli cone trio ($10) features current flavors of pistachio, s’mores and dark chocolate coconut served in sugar cones on grand display in a stand.

Each starts with the heart of the dish — the filling. It is a house-made mixture of ricotta, mascarpone, whipped cream and sugar.

“They get the cool, very soft, kind of creamy inside,” Hurd says. “It’s this great balance between rich cream and then a crunchy cone.”

The combination of filling and cone is already next-level, but the toppings make it a spectacle in taste and presentation.

The cones get dipped in melted chocolate so that the toppings can create a textured rim. The pistachio’s chocolate rim gets covered in crushed toasted pistachios before the entire thing is topped with either whipped cream and a maraschino cherry, or with chocolate. The s’mores cone has mashed graham crackers both on the chocolate rim and sprinkled on top of the toasted mini marshmallows that cover the filling.

“You get that almost over-a-campfire charred marshmallow feel,” Hurd says.

The dark chocolate coconut serves as the mellow option that’s less sugary and more refined. The coconut shavings bring texture to the dark chocolate rim, while fine dark chocolate shavings and raspberries top the whole creation. “They’re shaved real thin, so it kind of melts when it hits your mouth,” he says.

The trio offers a merry-go-round of tastes and textures, so you can experience a little bit of everything.

“Pistachios are kind of that earthy, nutty kind of flavor. You get s’mores, and you get that extra sugar kick from a marshmallow. Your dark chocolate coconut … has that unctuous dark chocolate feel,” Hurd says. “It’s supposed to be a little tongue-in-cheek.” AS

5430 Massillon Road, Green, thetwistedolive.com