Coppa. Just a sliver of a restaurant on Shawmut Avenue in the South End of Boston. It has a pedigree. Ken Oringer and Jaime Bissonnette own the restaurant and also own Toro together. Hailed by every food critic far and wide I can see why. It’s serious not fussy. Just really great ingredients put together in inventive ways. The people that work at Coppa are artists, committed and proud of what they do and it shows, from the bartender to the sous chef making the Tuna Crudo.
We were on our way to another restaurant but when I mentioned Coppa to Roy on the street, someone passing by said, “you have to go there , it’s the best”. And, so that’s where we ended up. Since it was only 5P we knew we’d get 2 at the bar.
And we did Already, a buzz at 5 o’clock we grabbed a couple of seats and ordered 2 Prosecco to toast the beginning of summer. And then, what to order. Hard to choose, we started with ostriches (2 oysters) with hint of rhubarb verjus, set on a mound of salt, incredible. Then, we ordered the Pizza Pepe Blanco named after Pepe’s in New Haven. We’ve had the pizza blanco at Pepe’s, but Coppa’s is probably the best pizza we’ever had. A white clam pizza with bacon and baby leeks. The crust perfect with not a hint of oil. Made in a wood burning oven. And, an order of arancini with fontina cheese.
I was watching as one of the chefs was preparing the tuna crudo. He did it with such intense attention to detail and it looked so good, I had to order it. A thick slice of the pinkest tuna, radish, sriracha and sweet sicily. Who thinks these concoctions up? That’s why Coppa is what it is!
I had a delicious sparkling Rose which the bartender who looked like Rosaria Dawson recommended, and Roy had a good, old Narragansett beer!
A special shout out to Nicole who was sitting next us. She’s an open water swimmer and going to Istanbul next week to participate in a swim across the Bosporus along with 4,000 other swimmers. Cool right???
It was such a beautiful night we decided to go elsewhere for dessert and ended up at Beehive, at the bar of course, and had a fantastic rhubarb and berry bread pudding with vanilla ice cream.
A good way to start the summer, don’t you think?
See you at the bar….
