Gran Gusto

Gran Gusto restaurant is in many ways the antithesis to dining in the North End. It's off the beaten track, up in Cambridge past Porter Square away from the hustle and bustle of tourist-filled downtown Boston in the summer. The food is authentic, rather than the replicated pasta dishes on Hanover Street where every other place seems to have similar versions of the same menu. Simply put, the North End is for the Italian Americans (certainly no shortage of visitors from New York and New Jersey to the Beanpot city) whereas the patrons at Gran Gusto are Italians - as in from Italy. All the food at Gran Gusto is made in-house, including the freshly baked bread, and they import over 80% of their cooking ingredients from Italy weekly to keep the food fresh and real. From olive oil, flour, truffles, speciality cheeses, bufala mozzarella, to the wine, it's this attention to the basic ingredients that the food is made from that really sets apart the final meal.

Take good quality Tuscan olive oil, for example. Top-notch olive oil is unlike anything I've tasted in the States, frankly; it's thick and rich, you can actually taste the olives, and when you look at it in the bottle it's a brilliant bright green. It's a world away from the olive oil on sale at the supermarket; for me it's as if I had never tasted olive oil for the first twenty years of my life, without realizing it. So when one cooks with real Tuscan olive oil, well the whole dish is infused with flavor from the beginning. Once you've tried it you'll never go back.

Next let's consider the cheese. The stracciatella appetizer special, for example, uses fresh mozzarella, a particularly soft variety with a creamy texture, flown in from Campania. It puts American cheese, all yellowed and coagulated in the plastic film slip, to shame. Or take the bufala mozzarella used to top the Gran Gusto Neapolitan pizzas, which is made from the milk of the water buffalo, not Cow Bessie in Idaho. This cheese is so light and fluffy, truly.

The Neapolitan pizza, which means the dough is rolled thin by American standards and cooked in a wood-fired oven, is Gran Gusto's signature dish. The dough is delectable, thanks to the imported flour and olive oil spread over the top of disk before firing it in the oven, so the result is the softest crust imaginable - it puts Domino's to shame. There is a variety of great toppings to decide between, from the traditional margherita and caprese, to the Diavolo with spicy sausage, the arugola and proscuitto, or my personal favorite, the Sorrentina with basil, tomatoes, and eggplant. The cherry tomatoes absorb the herbal aromas, literally infused with basil flavor in the oven, and explode in your mouth with each bite, paired with pieces of smoky, rich eggplant. Arguably it's the best pizza in the Boston area.

Finishing with a salad course in true European fashion, I recommend the Campo, with yellow porcini mushrooms over mesculun greens in a lemon dressing. (Dairy- and gluten-free, friends!) The mushroom had a buttery softness reminiscent of calamari, providing an interesting texture with the greens. Though there was far too much lemon dressing, the lettuce literally doused in citrus, it seemed, it was ultimately a quite refreshing dish. Pair this salad with any of the pastas, pizzas, or the heavenly eggplant parmesan, and finish it all off with a nice espresso, enjoying the charming decor and cozy ambience, and you will have the true Gran Gusto dining experience. Yes the service is slow and you can find yourself waiting a long time between courses, so if you're looking for a quick meal then this is not the place for you. But if you want to sit back and relax, to close your eyes and picture Napoli, great food in your belly, then look no further than here.

4.5/5 stars.