1393 Grafton Street, Worcester
Phone: (508) 797-3354
la-cucina-italiana.res-menu.net
Bernard Whimore
Restaurant loyalty can suffer many slights, especially when the proprietors are a local family. But let the kitchen mess too much with the marinara recipe and they’re dead to us. That’s what makes La Cucina such a rarity: over decades and multiple moves, it has remained a place worth following.
The Panarelli family earned that loyalty long ago. They started in the Sixties with The Italian Kitchen on Shrewsbury Street, then moved to Hamilton Street and renamed the restaurant La Cucina in the early Aughts. We loved that location, especially its antique doors hung with vintage photographs of early Worcester family scenes.
From there, they moved to their current location on Grafton Street, bringing the same family recipes and style of Italian home cooking with them. A year ago, the Panarellis sold the restaurant to Fenilkumar Patel, but with the assurance that the food and service would remain just as strong.
So far, that promise has held. Still, each visit to La Cucina comes with a little apprehension about unwelcome change. For my dining companion, that concern would take one specific form: the disappearance of tripe. That’s right, tripe—the inner wall of a cow’s stomach, a honeycombed structure that is labor-intensive to prepare and beloved by a very small but very devoted audience. I am not part of that audience, though I respect it.
Relieved that it still appeared on the menu, he ordered a cup of tripe and, by mistake, was served a bowl. No problem. He greedily plowed into it: small chunks of chewy, spongy protein simmered in tomato marinara. With a few shakes of red pepper flakes and a blizzard of grated cheese, this was bliss for him. I sampled the sauce and found it tasty and not at all off-putting. The texture and faint offal whiff, however, were another matter.
Eggplant is another dish we prefer to leave to specialists, and La Cucina excels at it. The kitchen serves it in many forms—rollatini, Parmesan, and sandwiches—but the Parmesan remains one of the restaurant’s most dependable strengths.
For his entrée, my friend chose the Eggplant Parmesan. I’ve seen this dish take many forms: little medallions arranged on a plate with dabs of cheese, breaded slices, or stacks of eggplant disks. La Cucina’s version looks almost like lasagna, with layer upon layer of breaded, fried eggplant alternating with Parmesan cheese and marinara sauce. No doubt, it’s the best we’ve had and another reliable favorite. His serving came with cavatelli pasta, all drenched in marinara.
And that brings us back to La Cucina’s marinara: fresh tomato flavor, slight tartness, intense depth, and a rich texture that lavishly coats the pasta. Those qualities may not seem as though they should coexist, yet the Panarelli family recipe and technique still deliver a righteous marinara experience. It remains the main reason we’ve followed this restaurant for decades—and the clearest sign that La Cucina is still worthy of that loyalty.
Blackboard specials may include Lobster Alfredo, Stuffed Squid or New York Sirloin. I usually order with boring consistency; pasta and meatballs or sausage, lasagna, or eggplant rollatini – anything featuring La Cucina’s bright-flavored marinara. Tonight, however, I chose one of the specials: gnocchi with spinach and chicken.
Gnocchi, little dumplings most often made from mashed potatoes, flour and eggs, are another dish that is easy to get wrong. At their best, they are soft as clouds and receptive to a startling range of sauces. Too often, though, the dough is overworked, producing dumplings that are dense and tough.
La Cucina’s gnocchi are better than most and, perhaps, the best in town. For this special, they were tossed with tender chicken medallions and draped with spinach leaves simmered in the restaurant’s signature marinara, whose bright flavor had been deeply inflected with sautéed garlic. The pungency landed at first like an assault, but I quickly came to appreciate it.
My bowl of gnocchi proved that La Cucina is much more than a spaghetti-and-meatballs house. Keep an eye on the specials board if you want something a little more inventive. Our only regret that evening was forgetting to bring a bottle of wine. La Cucina remains BYOB, and meals like this deserve a glass of spicy Chianti or vibrant, fruity Brunello.