This restaurant has been several things over the years. It’s been La Rocca for some time now (about six years), but it’s not a place that comes up much in conversation about Montclair eateries. I think it’s more than its forgettable name, off-the-avenue location or the possible confusion of its former incarnation as Osteria Giotto, which closed and then reopened on Church Street in Montclair as Cafe Giotto, only to have one of the former partners reopen this Italian restaurant with a different name in the same space as the Osteria Giotto after the demise of the meh barbecue joint that opened after its first closing. See, it’s confusing.
But, honestly, I think the reason people aren’t jawing about this joint is that the food sits in that just-fine category. Which, to be fair, is pretty standard in the New Jersey Italian landscape. Very rarely do you eat a bowl of pasta and your head fucking explodes. You know what I mean? But Italian food can be, and is often, delicious. Why else would there 210 million Italian restaurants in one small-ish, overcrowded state?But it takes something special to rise above the crop. And La Rocca just ain’t it. Sure, the servers are very nice. The vibe in the place is very casual and neighborhood-y and everyone has a BYO bottle of wine or three at their table. Granted, the night we were there some asshat insisted on talking like a loud know-it-all, pronouncing every Italian thing on the menu like a fucking Sopranos extra. “Oh, Mikey, you gotta try the gaspag sopa and da soprasot wit da gabagul. Oh, you gotta get the [indecipherable mish-mash of vowels and shit].” First, nobody has to get nothing. Second, the dude was such a douchey wannabe that the server actually had no idea what one of the things was he tried to order due to his stupid gangster Jersey pronunciation of the thing, so he had to basically re-say it like a normal human being. He was, by all visual whatever, just a normal-looking white guy in a polo shirt and not a pompadoured tough in a sharkskin suit. There’s always one.
First, we had the calamari fritti (fried calamari), which comes in a weird basket made of deep fried Ruffles. It’s honestly an odd and completely unnecessary gimmick, as the calamari was actually really decent. Oddly, there were no tentacle pieces, which made me a little sad, but I suppose the potato chip basket is their way of justifying the $19 they charge for the thing. For my main I got my typical tagliatelle bolognese. This is typically made with a pretty robust meat sauce, and I stupidly assumed that the meat is beef. I’m always wrong. While the pasta itself was decent (and presumably handmade), the sauce was not only sparse, but seemingly more like little pork or veal chunks or something than a nice ragu. Honestly, the sauce was barely there, was texturally not great and was bland as all get out. I’m looking online at some photos of others’ bolognese orders at La Rocca there and they seemed to have way more sauce than I did. I think I got a little scammed. Although more mid is still mid, just more of it. For $31 I would have expected more. Ms. Hipster got something called fazzoletti, which is ricotta and spinach filled ravioli with tomato and basil sauce. She said, once again, that the pasta was good and the spinach filling not bad, but the marinara-like sauce was lackluster and not “her thing.” Hipster Jr. liked his gnocchi. His was plentiful and I tasted one, which had the right texture and was generally tasty. Hipster Jr. Jr., who doesn’t really eat “Italian” food, got a $42 skirt steak with caramelized onion-infused mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus and romesco sauce. The steak apparently looked better than it tasted — the crust more visual than practical. I will say it did look good, was cooked a perfect medium rare and she didn’t try the romesco sauce, which I spooned a little of and it wasn’t bad. The potatoes would have been better if they weren’t a little cooler than room temp when they arrived and had settled into a slightly gummy consistency. The asparagus was a little rough, a little too al dente with some bitterness from the grill carbon tinging the taste.
We also waited quite a while for our food on an admittedly busy Sunday evening. Like an awkwardly long time. The water is free, at least and was refilled a couple times. There is also a small basket of bread, which is nice (and I think was free). All of this fun — two appetizers, four entrées and two Diet Cokes — and the bill came to almost exactly $200 before tip. This is without booze, mind you. This is all to say that the whole experience was a mixed bag — and not a cheap one at that. And, yes, I know food just kind of costs that now, but if I’m spending that kind of coin for a casual meal on a Sunday, I want something a little more special. Or at least memorable. I feel, given the long wait and the weirdly skimpy amount of saucing in my sauce-based dish, that perhaps they were down a chef. Or perhaps they called in a sub. Whatever the case, I can give it a third chance at some point down the road. But I have a feeling my whole middle-of-the-road-nothing-special feeling will remain.
21 Midland Ave. – Montclair
973/746-0707
laroccaosteria.com
