Leave Your Belt At Home

Caffé Capri in East Rutherford is the kind of place where eating dessert before dinner only increases your appetite. One spoon-sized taste of their bacio gelato and I couldn’t wait to order the actual meal.

The restaurant’s bright space is divided in two — when you enter, you walk into a spacious area with tables, a counter and dessert display, and then there’s a second area off to the side that is all windows, from floor to roof. When we went last night, everyone was seated in this glass house of sorts, so it felt welcoming and popular, but not too crowded. You might feel lured into sitting in front of all those windows, too, but you know what the best view is? Watching the young man twirling pizza at the brick oven as waiters and waitresses banter in Italian.

We found ourselves inside after just barely squeezing into the tiny parking lot because an Italian friend of my mother’s raved about the pizza. But after reading the menu, we knew we couldn’t just get the pizza.

I was tempted by their range of pasta, poultry and other dishes, such as shrimp and calamari with linguine, or the fresh, homemade fettucine with mushrooms, ham, and peas in a light pink sauce.

My eyes moved back to where the appetizers were listed and I was happy enough to see fried calamari, but then I saw calamari mimmo, something I had never seen before. It is essentially fried calamari with arrabiata sauce (my favorite!) - it was not as crispy since it’s actually swimming in the sauce, but this was not a bad thing by far - think of when you sop up bread with the last bit of garlick-y, tomato-y sauce. Ooooo - my husband is lucky I’m the sharing type.

There were four of us, so we ordered two pizzas (they’re all 12-inch) - a margherita which, if you don’t know, is with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil, and a quattro stagioni which comes with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, artichokes, black olives, wild mushrooms, and prosciutto. The crust is thin, but not burnt at all, and had a firm, salty flavor. It really was a great platform for the toppings. It was a good medium between crispy and chewy. And after you’ve had fresh mozzarella, all the other so-called cheese slices anywhere else just seem like unsavory imitations that aren’t worth the tummy ache.

Although the pies are smaller than what you normally might expect (there are no 18-inch “large” pies), each of the four slices were large (but don’t picture the long, floppy, greasy slices you might normally expect either - no blotting necessary!). So with two slices each, each of us were completely filled to the brim.

But of course there was room for dessert (especially after that first taste - we had to make room!). So, we enjoyed some of the hazelnut gelato, and some of the bacio gelato. If you’re not familiar with the Perugina baci (which means ‘kiss’ in Italian) candy, it is a mix of milk and bittersweet chocolate and hazelnut chunks. Real (and hershey) kisses wish they could taste this good. Both flavors were rich and intense and, when together, they really enveloped and complemented each other.

I had initially thought the food wasn’t going to be enough because the four of us are healthy eaters, but from beginning to end, the meal was completely satisfying and filling.

Caffé Capri
119 Park Avenue
East Rutherford
(201) 460-1039
www.caffecapri-er.com

— by Donna M.
Donna is both a Jersey native and recent transplant from NYC. She is executive editor and a co-founder of GoOutJersey.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!