Trattoria Rustica Fills Niche in Montclair

Trattoria Rustica
577 Bloomfield Ave
973-783-3436

Though the sushi mafia is making a go of it in North Jersey, Italian is still the eats du jour. Here in JerseyCool’s home base of Montclair there’s Il Forno, Osteria Giotto and Fascino forming a pasta lover’s tier 1, then there’s your Nauna’s and Marzullo taking a step down in price and ambiance if not quality.

Well, for those not wanting to unload a small fortune, there’s now a happy medium over on Bloomfield Ave.

Trattoria Rustica, 577 Bloomfield Ave., serves a variety of Italian fare in a clean and inviting environment. We checked it out this past weekend with high expectations that were mostly met.

‘Twas the night before New Year’s Eve so we decided to go light, forgoing appetizers and sticking to the pasta dishes. I had the penne with sausage, which was quite good. The penne was al dente and the sausage was sufficiently spicy to give the meal a kick.

C went for the gemelli pasta with eggplant and tomato, an interesting dish that didn’t quite live up to the hype. Still, it was good enough to take the leftovers home.

Even though we didn’t try the appetizers we got a substantial serving of foccacia bread with olive oil for dipping. Yum.

Now, there have been a few complaints about TR’s service floating around the world wide web, but we didn’t notice anything too obnoxious. Sure, our waiter listed the specials and then took off to do something else other than take our order but we actually thought that sort of gave us some time to mull over what we wanted.

The couple next to us did seem to have some trouble getting menus but we’re willing to chalk that up to new place syndrome. The staff was friendly with the owner stopping by to chat at the end of the meal Honestly, we’ve seen worse elsewhere.

The decor is fairly impressive. Comfy hi-back sofas line the right of the restaurant giving the place a swank feel, and the rustic inspired wall paintings set a nice ambiance without venturing into the land of cheese.

What JC liked most about Trattoria Rustica were the prices. Always a bonus. Pasta hovered in the $15 range while meatier fare was $5-$7 more. Not bad especially if you wanted to take along some young-lings for the evening. This is a welcome trend on Bloomfield Ave. where we’ve found moderately priced fare in a decent atmosphere harder and harder to come by.

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