Coppa - South End

I'm sure you were anxiously awaiting this post when I mentioned charcuterie, house made pasta and hamachi in my last post. If not, too bad!

Tom and I decided last Saturday that a date night was in order. I have a ridiculous list of over 50 restaurants I'm dying to try in Boston, so we glanced it over and decided to head over to Coppa in the South End! I had heard mixed reviews about Coppa (some raving it was incredible, and some saying it was just okay) but I'm SO glad we decided to give it a shot.

Coppa is a small eatery created by Chefs Jamie Bisonette and Ken Oringer (chef/owner of Clio, where I went on my 25th birthday). It's tucked away on a side street in the South End and has a menu right up my alley -- filled with Italian cured meats, homemade pastas, pizzas, and unique entrees.

We arrived around 8 PM on the rainy evening. The Patriots were playing so we figured we'd have a better shot at snagging a table at prime time without a reservation, and we were right. We were told it would be about a 30 minute wait, but within minutes seats opened up at the counters lining the windows and the bar. We decided to wait it out for a table, and only ended up standing by the bar for about 20 minutes.

We started off the evening by splitting a Smuttynose "Pure Biss" (Chef Jamie Bissonnette's Unconventional Whitbier), which while out of season, was a treat to try on Jamie's home turf.

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Deciding what to order was tough as everything on the menu sounded delicious! In the end, we ordered a bunch of items to split:

- Kampachi Crudo (Raw kampachi, yuzu, caviar, pistachio, dashi) -- we decided to order this because we wanted something fresh and the words yuzu and dashi are heavily used on Top Chef! :-D This was so delicious. It was just the perfect way to start the meal -- crisp, flavorful and unique.

There were 5 of these little piece on the plate -- I just forgot to take a photo!

- Salumi sampler (we ordered Beef Heart Pastrami, Gentile Salami, Coppa, Lingua and La Quercia Prosciutto) -- from my experience, typically when I order a salumi/charcuterie sampler the restaurant chooses the types of meat that will be featured. I was happily surprised that we could choose our own 5 meats, and was completely shocked when our board (shaped as a pig!!) came out. On the board were five heaping piles of thin, freshly cut meats, as well as marinated mushrooms, sweet pickles, and pickled greens. The meat and vegetables were fantastic. I was especially happy we asked our waitress for a prosciutto recommendation and went with La Quercia -- it was by far my favorite of the group.

Pig board!

- Arancini (traditional fried risotto balls stuffed with fontina) -- for $6 we received two large arancini in sauce. They were very good, but compared to the other outstanding food we received it was the least memorable.

We finished with two half portions of pasta:
- Spaghetti alla Carbonara (egg pasta with smoked pancetta, sea urchin and farm egg) -- delicious. I loved the combination of the pancetta and sea urchin and the spaghetti was cooked very well. I would have liked this dish with a slightly thicker pasta.

- Rigatoni con Sugo (extruded pasta with Brambly Farm pork ragu, cabbage, sage and Parmesan) -- this was my favorite dish of the night. The sauce was so flavorful and the pork was cooked perfectly. I could eat this for dinner every. single. night. Hmm...maybe I will!

Overall we had a fantastic experience at Coppa and I will absolutely go back. I may even try to order some salumi to pack up and bring home!

Coppa is located at:

253 Shawmut Avenue

Boston, MA 02118
(617) 391-0902