I first tasted Mauro Aniello’s food in Cambridge in the mid-1970s when he worked at a pizza place in Harvard Square. Later, he had his own restaurant in Boston’s North End. By 1983, he’d sold that and moved to this area, where he opened Pinocchio’s in North Amherst. I live nearby and my wife and I dropped in regularly, following its progression from a pizza place to one of the best restaurants in town. We got to know Aniello there, and watched the departure of Pinocchio’s to downtown Amherst in 1986 with regret.
Aniello later sold Pinocchio’s and opened the Monkey Bar and then Bistro 63. Under the new owners, Pinocchio’s declined, and a fire in 2004 closed it for good. Aniello took back the restaurant, gutted and redid it, opening in September 2007 as LA PIAZZA RISTORANTE (30 Boltwood Walk, Amherst, 253-5444, http://lapiazzaristorante.us). He wanted to start from the ground up, he explained to me, so he picked a new name.
After two years and some false starts, the restaurant is up to speed. La Piazza makes its own orecchiette and gnocchi, as well as its own bread. The stocks and sauces are from scratch and the meats are butchered in-house. Aniello splits his time between the Monkey Bar and La Piazza, but he’s trained the crew at La Piazza well.
One night, we sat at the bar with our friends Betsy and Stephan. The bar had a cozy feel, and we felt as if we were just dropping in for a quick bite, not committed to a formal meal. Still, we managed a complete meal and then some. I started with a mushroom soup finished with cream and truffle oil. It had a deep, rich flavor that still allowed the truffle oil to come through. A tomato bruschetta arrived with a creamy streak of cheese – asiago, I think – that offset the rest of it nicely. A homemade tapenade accompanied the basket of bread.
My wife tried the seafood pescatore, a tasty seafood stew filled with mussels, clams and a good-sized piece of fresh cod, in a tomato-based broth infused with the juice from the clams and mussels. Betsy had the gnocchi Trieste, light, flat disks of dough in a creamy sauce dotted with pancetta and sausage bits. A touch of asiago added a pleasant bite. Stephan and I had the veal special, two cutlets rolled around herbed spinach and mozzarella. A side of mashed potatoes and a spinach and root vegetable sauté accompanied the veal.
We finished with tiramisu. A cliché in other places, this is homemade by Aniello’s wife, Claire, and has the ladyfingers crumbled into the custard for a much lighter texture and a rich taste. The restaurant offers a home-steeped flavored grappa, but Stephan went for a snifter of plain grappa.
On another night, we took my stepson out to dinner. We started by splitting two orders of pasta, the orecchiette Bolognaise in a long-simmered tomato stock, studded with chunks of veal and finished with a little cream. We also had the shrimp puttanesca, four large shrimps, olives and capers in a smooth tomato sauce that had a bit of anchovy. Cooked into a sauce, the anchovies provided nice background flavor without the salty, fishy taste that many people do not like. You can order the dish spiced on a scale of 1 to 4. We got the 3 and it had plenty of heat, although not so much that it masked the other flavors.
I’ve been researching veal, so this time I selected the veal chop, split and stuffed with fontina cheese and herbs. Aniello wraps the large chop in prosciutto before sautéing it, which adds saltiness and crispness. The chop was accompanied with a risotto drizzled with truffle oil and a mix of spinach, eggplant and green peppers sauced with a demi-glaze.
My wife got chicken piccata, two cutlets in a white wine and demi-glaze sauce studded with capers. Caleb had sole stuffed with shrimp. The sole was a little past its prime, but the dish was otherwise tasty. The same sides accompanied their entrees.
Aniello, who grew up in Turin, Italy, is a third-generation restaurateur, and he says his first memories involve the smells of food cooking. La Piazza is his seventh restaurant.
Looking around during my meal, I noticed that each table seemed to be getting attention from its server. Aniello says he has a number of principles that go into making a good restaurant, including hiring servers who are professional and pleasant. “The most important person in the restaurant is the customer. And then the dishwasher,” he laughs.
La Piazza is open seven days a week, from 5 to 10 p.m. on weekdays and until 11 on weekends. Salads and appetizers range from $6 to $12.95. Pastas are available in half and whole portions for $9.95 to $14 for the half and $14 to $17.95 for the whole. Entrees range from $15 to $25. The tiramisu is $8.
Originally published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, February 19, 2010
