The first time I stepped into Pagliacci’s Italian Restaurant on West 33rd Avenue, I immediately thought about my long-lost friend Maria Filomena Loretta Puccio (nee Catania), whom I haven’t seen in a decade, and who was responsible for one of the greatest evenings of my life.
It was, I think, 1993. Maria, a production manager at the publishing company where I was an assistant’s assistant, was getting married to Eddie “The Neck” Puccio, a New York City firefighter.
They held the ceremony in a stately Catholic church on Staten Island, to which both the bride’s mother and the groom’s wore floor-length sequined gowns, slit up the back. I rented a tux, which didn’t fit.
After the rice-toss, they shuttled everyone to a massive banquet hall in Brooklyn for the reception, which lasted for what seemed like days: Cocktails (open bar), dinner (meat and pasta and cannoli and cake), dancing (the funky chicken to the tune of “So Many Men, So Little Time” with mother-of-the-bride Aida Catania, co-owner of Aida’s World of Liquors).
And, at midnight, “Venetian Hour,” a sprawling buffet split into two sections: seafood (mostly shellfish) and breakfast (French toast and coffee cake).
My head hurt on the morning after, but I had a smile on my face.
My head didn’t hurt the morning after dinner at Pagliacci’s, one Denver’s longest-standing red sauce institutions. But I had that same smile.
Tricked out in Italian-countryside frescoes, basket-woven chianti bottles, faux archways and spumoni-colored uplighting, Pagliacci’s, like its food, is more Italian-American than it is Italian-Italian.
Think Providence, not Palermo. North Beach, not Naples. Colorado, not Calabria.
But I’d be first in line to sign whatever petition it takes to declare Italian-American cuisine its own discreet food category. And in that category, Pagliacci’s is as authentic as it gets.
Little has changed on the menu of this red sauce institution since it opened its doors 60 years ago to a then mostly Italian West Denver neighborhood. Pasta Bolognese, seven-layer lasagne, veal picatta, meatballs.
You know, the good stuff.
Happily, the menu hasn’t been messed with much. And while Pagliacci’s won’t win awards for edgy contemporary cooking, that’s not what you come here for anyway.
You come here for things like garlic bread, or thick Texas-sized slices of garlic-and parsley flecked toast. You come here for sausage and peppers. You come here for spumoni.
And you come here for the legendary Pagliacci’s minestrone, which, if it’s not exactly what you had on your last trip to Rome, is a soulful mix of barley, beans, beef broth and discernible vegetables like carrots, zucchini and tomato. (Discernability is not to be undervalued in a minestrone. Often, what passes for minestrone is a blur of mushy, unrecognizable vegetables. Not Pagliacci’s.)
The minestrone is served family style, ladled from a tureen at your table, a nice touch. Take a pint of it home – poach an egg in it for breakfast.
Other appetizers to come here for: savory sautéed chicken livers with onions and red wine. Light, flavorful, un-greasy fried breaded eggplant with red sauce. Meatballs.
Not worth the trip: Fried ravioli, which must be eaten immediately or they’ll harden. Sautéed mushrooms, which tasted more like the plant where they were processed than the soil where they grew. Calamari, nicely textured but tasteless without its dipping sauce.
You may feel full after appetizers, but don’t kid yourself – dinner is only getting started.
My favorite entrée at Pagliacci’s was the Italian Variety Dinner, which makes me hungry just writing about it: Lightly breaded, fried chicken parmigiana, ricotta-stuffed manicotti, and baked ravioli, all doused in sweet-savory house red sauce. (Comes with minestrone.) That’s what I call a supper.
Gnocchi, a troublesome dish wherever it’s served, is usually (not always) good at Pagliacci’s. Twice, the gnocchi worked, once, not so much. The best version had sausage and mushrooms in the mix.
Pasta dishes are split into two groups: Fatta in casa (house- made) and classico (dried) pasta. Frankly, I usually prefer dried pasta dishes in most restaurants, because homemade pasta is just too finicky for many kitchens to handle. This held true for Pagliacci’s with two exceptions: the aforementioned baked manicotti, and the lasagne, a supple-soft tower of pasta sheets layered with red sauce.
As to the dried pastas, choose the capellini al pomodoro (pasta, tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil) or the spaghetti Bolognese (a meat ragu that overpowered the gnocchi but dressed the spaghetti deftly).
Linguine with clam sauce, always my first-choice dish at any pasta restaurant, was lusty and salty and clammy, its savory broth fed by the liquor of the just-opened clams. Not out of this world, but a good placeholder until my next trip to the old country (Boston’s North End).
There is plenty on the menu for vegetarians: the penne “Norma,” tossed with eggplant, garlic, tomato, and basil, was fresh at first bite, but eat it quick – our eggplant was perfect when it hit the table, but quickly went viscous. Capellini with pesto, also vegetarian, was a good, garlicky backup.
Not everyone loves veal, but I do. Pagliacci’s saltimbocca version (prepared with prosciutto, sage, shallots, and white wine) cut and ate like butter.
Lest you think you’ll escape Pagliacci’s without dessert, remember: This is an Italian restaurant. You are here to stuff yourself silly. So, order a dish of spumoni. It’s chocolatey, pistachio-y and plenty boozy.
Tiramisu is creamy and soft, and if you get a fresh batch, good on you – ours just tasted like the fridge.
But after another glass of chianti, who cared?
Is the food at Pagliacci’s absolutely perfect? Nah. The red sauce is a little too sweet, the pasta a little too sticky, the veal a little too tough. And if someone’s serving a perfect meatball in Denver somewhere, it continues to elude me.
But Pagliacci’s, a bona fide trip of a restaurant, satisfies both the palate and the soul. And it reignited the memory of one of the favorite nights of my life.
That’s what I call a dinner well worth it.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-954-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
Pagliacci’s Italian
1440 W. 33rd Ave., 303-458-0530
**| (Very Good)
Atmosphere: Classic throwback Italian-American restaurant. Italian- countryside frescoes, tiled faux-archways, spumoni-colored uplighting. Louis Prima on the stereo.
Service: Experienced and efficient. Friendly but not smothering. Sometimes too busy to pay much attention to you.
Wine: Small wine list that won’t win any prizes but will quench your thirst for chianti or montepulciano. Most are offered by the glass.
Plates: Small plates, $3-9. Entrees $13.50-$22.
Hours: 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 4-9 p.m. Sunday.
Details: All major credit cards. Reservations encouraged, but not usually needed. Parking lot. Good for large groups or cold afternoons.
Three visits.
Our star system:
****: Exceptional.
***: Great.
**: Very good.
*: Good.
No stars: Needs work.
