Feedbag - Italian for beginners
Napa Valley Trattoria offers rustic pleasures, no attitude
I must confess, I went into my first meal at Napa Valley Market & Trattoria with a bad attitude. First of all, I knew it was part of a chain, and its other two locations were in far-flung Duluth and Alpharetta. I’m an intown snob — what can I say? Second, there were misspellings on the menu. Granted, I only know that because I minored in Italian in college. But still. If an Italian restaurant can’t spell calamari, can it still cook them well? That remained to be seen.
Napa Valley occupies the same commercial strip as the glitzier Haven, tucked inconspicuously among the houses and shade trees of Dresden Drive in residential Brookhaven. I enviously eyed the chic patrons dining on Haven’s patio as I trudged past to Napa Valley, a few doors down. The place looks like what it is: a suburban Italian chain that’s several notches above the Olive Garden with cheap stemware, cheesy fake grapevines and a 17-year-old hostess.
It wasn’t until gutsy Italian-American dishes began to arrive, one after another, that I started to come around. Roman-style artichokes — braised artichoke hearts with garlic, lemon and parsley — were tender with delicate, harmonious flavors. Fried ravioli were a pleasant surprise of crispy-chewy pillows stuffed with spinach and artichoke puree. I suggest you put your diet on hold before a night at Napa Valley.
The hits kept on coming. Rigatoni a la vodka, fat pasta tubes lightly sauced with vodka-and cream-spiked marinara, was Italian-American comfort food at its best. This is the kind of dish you keep eating past the point of being uncomfortably full, just because it’s so good. The addition of crumbled Italian sausage was a departure from the classic preparation, but it worked. I was starting to wonder if someone’s 90-year-old Italian grandma was toiling away in the kitchen.
Chicken marsala, though adequate, didn’t leave much of an impression. Chicken breasts pounded thin had been pan-sauteed with mushrooms and topped with a marsala pan sauce. Everything seemed competently prepared — the chicken was tender and juicy, the sauce sweet but not overpoweringly so — but it just lacked oomph.
Our server was incredibly friendly and accommodating, which I appreciated but my husband found annoying: I think he’s just become accustomed to indifference or hostility from wait staff. I think a lot of us have. If the server did hover a bit, it was just to make sure we were enjoying ourselves, which, by the time the food arrived, we most definitely were. Napa Valley may not be as sophisticated as some of its intown brethren, but it’s not the least bit pretentious, and much of the food is great. And isn’t that the point of going out to dinner, after all?