Marcella’s – A Resaurant Review

On Friday night, Kate wanted to take me out to dinner for my birthday.  We had both heard and seen a new Cameron Mitchell restaurant up at Polaris called Marcella’s and decided that would be a fine choice to try out.  Reading briefly what type of place this was online, I had the idea it would be your typical Italian pizza and wine restaurant, but it is quite a bit more than typical.

The idea of Marcella’s, is somewhat similar to Bucca di Beppo’s.  At Bucca’s if you have a large group, you order a couple of large “family style” dishes that you all share.  At Marcella’s, your typical dish is not nearly as large as a “family style” portion, but the idea of sharing is the same.  Your table is provided with a plate stacker, where multiple entries can be placed, and you are constantly provided with stacks of small appetizer plates.  Since this was our first time with this new experience, we ordered in typical fashion. An appetizer of calamari and then two entries of rizzuto and a margherita pizza which we both shared.  During the meal we picked up on how the actual meal experience was to take place.

The idea is that you keep ordering small dishes that are constantly brought out to you.  The typical time from request to on the table is about 10 minutes.  The ideal setup would to be to go with a party of 4-6 and everyone kinda orders something to share one after the other or two at a time.  Similar to how a Chinese family style restaurant is.  Another original aspect Marcella’s has is serving Italian meats and cheeses.  We didn’t try any this visit, but the couple next to us did, and I would be up for some testing some with a bigger group.  Finally, pricing is very conducive to the type of ordering system just described.  Your typical plate costs about $8-12, which would probably cost about $5 more at your normal fancy Italian restaurant.

A couple other notes.  We were surprised by the attire of the wait staff.  Jeans and t-shirts were the norm.  The environment was very noisy and and somewhat cramped, but it didn’t bother us too much.  It kinda gave you the feeling of “eating in Grandma’s kitchen” – to quote Kate.  Overall, Marcella’s grew on us over the course of the meal, and walking out we both agreed we very much enjoyed it and would love to come back with some more friends.