Pesto’s Italian Delicatessen and Fresh Pasta
471 Hazeldean Rd., 613-836-5432, facebook page
Open: Monday 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Tuesday to Friday 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Sunday
Prices: Porchetta sandwiches $6.95 to $10.50, depending on size and whether it’s hot or cold
Pietro’s Corner
300 Richmond Rd., 613-695-7600, pietroscorner.com
Open: Monday 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Prices: Pastas and sauces sold by weight, $2.59 per 100 grams on site
The focus today is on two casual Italian food purveyors that, even if they aren’t exactly restaurants in a more formal sense, serve fresh, well-made, reasonably priced items that I’d gladly pop by for or take home.
Pesto’s Italian Delicatessen in Kanata and Pietro’s Corner in Westboro are both blended businesses with notable pedigrees and laudable standards. At Pesto’s the main attraction is sandwiches. At Pietro’s, fresh, home-made pastas and sauces reign.
Pesto’s has been open in a Hazeldean Road strip mall since 1994, launched by Robert and David Nicastro, two sons of one of the founders of Nicastro’s Specialty Foods on Merivale Road, who later opened the Il Negozio Nicastro stores on Bank Street and Wellington Street West. Now, Pesto’s is owned and operated by another second-generation son, Michael Nicastro, who was the chef at the now closed Caffe Ventuno inside the Wellington West Nicastro for several years.
Like other Nicastro family businesses, Pesto’s is a grocery store as well as eatery, with olive oils, dried pastas and other imported Italian foodstuffs along two small walls. But the action, especially at lunch, has to do above all with sandwiches, with regulars frequently filling the venue’s 30 or so seats at its small tables and granite counter.
I’m a big fan of Pesto’s house-made porchetta sandwiches, with the thinly sliced roast pork served either warm with peppers and onions, or cold. Either way, the deeply flavoured meat has been piled high inside a crusty, puffy bun, and occasionally a morsel of crackling has crept in. After several of these beauts, it’s been hard for me to order anything else at the deli.
Not surprisingly given how tasty the porchetta is, selling it in large quantities has grown into a separate catering business for Nicastro, which he calls the Bootleg Porchetta Company. The pork is sourced locally from Lavergne Western Beef in Navan and Nicastro’s artisanal end product is made without nitrates. The same goes for the house-made roast beef, which relies on hormone-free meat from O’Brien Farms in Winchester. The roast beef sandwich was good, but it doesn’t displace its porchetta rival as my go-to.
I’ve also twice tried the massive chicken parmesan hero sandwich, but have never been heroic enough to eat all of one; I’ve always saved half for later. Spread over two meals or shared, the sandwich has been a winner, with pounded-thin, breaded cutlets that were tender, freshly cooked and flourishing in an admittedly messy deluge of punchy, salty, red sauce and cheese.
Chicken parm sandwich at Pesto’s Italian Delicatessen and Fresh Pasta
An extra-hungry friend had Pesto’s massive serving of spaghetti (not made in-house but by Parma Ravioli) with house-made meatballs at lunch and thought it generous and big-flavoured.
I’ve finished my lunches at Pestos with good Lavazza espressos and superior cannoli — regular, and, last week, Nutella-flavoured — with light, fresh, creamy fillings. Had I less work to do after lunch, I could have had one of two beers (Big Rig Gold or Peroni) or a glass of house wine or a coffee spiked with sambuca or grappa.
Cannoli and coffee at Pesto’s Italian Delicatessen in Kanata
Nutella cannoli at Pesto’s Italian Delicatessen and Fresh Pasta
Pietro’s Corner is one of Ottawa’s newer Italian eateries. It was opened in March 2015 by Pietro Derosa, a 27-year-old emigrant from Barletta in Italy’s Puglia region and the nephew of Luciano Gervasi, who opened the venerable Luciano’s Food store on Preston Street.
The main draw here is the selection of fresh pasta and sauces made on site, on display in a case by the cash. There are sandwiches and buffet items available too, although my few samplings of these selections, including a lacklustre chicken parmigiana sandwich, make me think that pastas and sauce are the way to go.
While the orrechiette, cavatelli and trofie pastas have appealed to me, I’ve always chosen one of the stuffed pastas — ravioli filled, for example, with sausage and rapini, or mushroom and leek, or spinach. Once they’ve been given a quick boil and served al dente, napped with a suitable sauce, they’ve always struck me as affordable treats.
Mushroom leek pasta with house special sauce at Pietro’s Corner- pix by Peter Hum Ottawa Citizen Photo Email
Spinach ravioli with pesto rosé sauce at Pietro’s Corner
Pricing here is by weight, with cooked pasta and sauce weighed and then served for $2.59 per 100 grams. The items are cheaper bought to take home.
The classic spaghetti with bolognese sauce has been worth ordering too, with a sauce that was bright, balanced and sweetened with carrots. The tomato- and cream-based sauces — made from scaled-up family recipes, Derosa told me this week — have freshness, clarity and, if appropriate, luxurious consistencies.
Spaghetti bolognese at Pietro’s Corner
I’ve ended lunches here very pleasantly with Siafac coffee, biscotti brought in from Montreal, and sfogliatella, crunchy pastries stuffed with Nutella or ricotta, brought in from Italy.
Recently, Pietro’s Corner, which is licensed, added a blackboard menu listing not just cocktails but also wines, appetizers, and boards of cured meats and cheeses. These items, Derosa told me, fit with his plans to begin staying open later Thursday through Saturday. If the antipasti can match the level of the pastas and sauces, they’ll be another good reason to visit Derosa’s corner.
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