Review: Stella Rossa 59 in Glendale, yummy Italian food
- Previously called Bravi Tuscan Kitchen%2C the spot has long been a destination for Italian cuisine.
- Now called Stella Rossa 59%2C the space reopened with a remodeled interior and menu refinement.
- Stella Rossa is a red wine%2C while the 59 refers to 59th Avenue%2C in Glendale %28at Union Hills Drive%29.
For several year, Tim Weber owned this restaurant space as Bravi Tuscan Kitchen. He recently reopened it as Stella Rossa 59, named for a wine that means "red star" and his 59th Avenue location, at Union Hills Drive, in Glendale.
With some tweaks to the menu (family-sized salads were dropped, all pizzas are now 12 inches), it's still a great place to go for classic Italian food.
Scene: Patrons of the old Bravi might not recognize some corners of the new place. The front face now opens up from a large new bar (the bar used to be in the back) to a generous patio for an indoor-outdoor feel. About half a dozen TVs dot the room.
Food: Calamari is a familiar item on Italian menus, but you never find it the same way twice — breaded or naked, cold or hot, rubbery or tender. At Stella Rossa, it comes as little rings deeply breaded and fried, hot, and served with housemade marinara sauce ($8.95). It's so heavily breaded that the shape of the rings disappears. But the squid inside is of the tender sort — no rubber bands here. The little nuggets go down easily with the savory marinara. It's good bar food if you're stopping by just to have a drink or catch a game on TV.
In the salad category, go for the Signature Salad ($14.95). The price is a little high, but this has pretty much everything you want in a salad. It can even be your entree with its mound of Romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, garbanzo beans, pepperoni, roast turkey, pepperoncini, boats of cucumber, cubes of fresh mozzarella and red bell peppers, all dressed in a red wine vinaigrette.
The veggie panino ($8.95) is nicely toasted and filled with long strips of roasted zucchini, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions that slither from captivity, fresh greens, mushrooms and provolone cheese, all pressed between slices of ciabatta bread. It's quite satisfying. It comes with a salad or bowl of soup. We had the Tuscan tomato soup, a little thin but emboldened with cream and warm tomato flavor.
The calzone is a two-fisted turnover, much the same sandwich as the panino, though in a different configuration. We could have, in fact, repeated with another round of roasted vegetables. But we opted for the House Favorite ($9.95), a pocket of golden brown dough packed with Italian beef, Italian sausage, diced pepperoni, caramelized onions, roasted green peppers and melted mozzarella. The personality of the sausage dominates, and that's the flavor you'll remember. A good memory.
The pizza is one more incarnation of the same ingredients. That's kind of the nature of Italian food: dough, toppings, fillings. A calzone, after all, is a folded-over pizza. A panino is a pizza that's been smashed between the jaws of a grill. I'm not complaining. We chose the margherita pizza with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and a chiffonade of basil ($14.95) and then added artichokes (75 cents). Some pizza joints use added artichokes almost as a garnish. Here, the surface was covered in a bounty of chokes. The crust is thin but not so thin that its baggage makes it soggy. It's a pretty fine pizza.
Besides pizza and sandwiches, Stella Rossa 59 makes an array of entrees, including ziti, ravioli, lasagna, macaroni and cheese.
The chicken piccata ($12.95) has highs and lows. The chicken pieces are moist, delicately breaded and bathed in a lemon and caper sauce, then dotted with more of those artichokes. The plate is framed with two pieces of grilled ciabatta. The disappointment was that the essence of the lemon and caper sauce doesn't trickle down to the bed of angel hair pasta the chicken rests on. So the pasta is a bland nest that should have had its own charm.
Desserts: Some of these are made in house, some are not. The chocolate lava cake ($6.95) is not, but you'd be a fool to pass it up if you're a chocolate lover. It's pretty regulation for this ubiquitous sweet: A round of dense, dark chocolate cake that oozes gooey chocolate when pierced, presented with two small scoops of vanilla ice cream and zigzags of chocolate sauce.
Meanwhile, cannolis are a strong house specialty, crispy pastry shell tubes filled with sweet cream and studded on the ends with tiny chocolate chips (two, $7.95).
A crowd-pleaser is the housemade tiramisu, a fluffy, layered cake of sponge, ladyfingers and cream filling, under a roof of chocolate and cocoa ($6.95). Some tiramisus are too boozy with coffee liqueur, but this has just the right impact of flavor.
Drinks: With that huge new bar, expect a menu of wine, beer and cocktails.
Lowdown: By presenting traditional Italian fare done well, the Webers have hit the right formula. They don't reach for anything exotic, funky or experimental, and that's probably why the place was packed when we stopped by to check out the changes. Not every dish is begging for molecular gastronomy.
Stella Rossa 59
Where: 5940 W. Union Hills Drive, Glendale.
Hours: 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays; 11 a.m.-midnight Fridays and Saturdays.
Phone: 602-588-3000.
Website:stellarossa59.com.
Cuisine: Italian.
Kid-friendly? Yes.
Stars: 3.5, based on food, service and ambience.
Price: Less than $20 per person for a three-course meal, excluding beverage, tax and tip.
Reach Yost at barbara@yoststories.com. She dines anonymously and The Republic pays all expenses.