North of Little Italy: That is the Manhattan neighbourhood Shreya Bajaj decided to name her new Italian restaurant after. Nolita plays up the theme with its clean white walls, its doors of soothing teal and the bougainvillea climbers in its backyard.
Raucous laughter from the somewhat too-cramped-together indoor tables adds to the mood — I suggest you keep your friends in here and take your date to the cobble-stoned backyard — but all of these are just added embellishments. The main focus here is pizza.
“We make Neapolitan-style pizzas here,” says Shreya, immediately conjuring up images of sauce-covered thick, soft breads in our minds. But we decide to put a pin on those cravings and try out a bowl of soup instead. It’s a decision we almost go back on, while perusing the range of pizzas, pasta and antipasti, but our doubts are dispelled the minute two bowls filled with spinach and roasted garlic soup are set down before us. The thick, dark green soup is topped with a light ring of cream and a sprinkling of almost-crisp roasted garlic slices. It is the latter that clinches it: the hit of roasted spice is a lovely break from the uncomplicated soup — in both taste and texture. Pro tip: don’t scoop up all the topping in your first few spoonfuls. We did, and were left wishing they would serve a side dish of just the garlic — yes, the garlic — to keep sprinkling on top.
Up next was a simple margherita. It tasted regular at first bite: nothing to write home about. But the sauce, which put up a fight for prominence over the cheese and left a steady touch of sweet tanginess on our tastebuds, was deceptively addictive. We mindlessly picked up a second slice each, and were halfway through them, before remembering our mission of combing through the menu.
CHENNAI, 05/02/2019: For Metro Plus: A view of the Nolita Restaurant at Nungambakkam. Photo: R. Ragu / The Hindu
We failed in our mission, but did manage to plonk ahead to the mushrooms, goat cheese cream, jalapeño and rucola pizza. This one had a tougher crust, as thick as the margherita’s, but with an edge that had risen higher and had toasted, almost-burnt sections criss-crossing it like veins. The densely-sprinkled toppings were a joy to behold, and satisfying to taste, with every bite of jalapeño bringing a welcome shock of tartness. The liberal amount of buttered spinach had a peppery tinge that was all but lost... the show here belonged to the jalapeño and cheese, with a guest appearance of umami from the mushrooms. Definite thumbs up, especially if you walk in with gluttonous intentions.
We might have been delirious in the early throngs of a food coma, but the lamb sausage and shallots pizza reminded us (fine, just me) strongly of Australia. Not Australian food, but Australian landscape, thanks to the lone, mountainous chunk of meat that rose like the Uluru from a sparse expanse of red and golden-yellow sauce. Terrible metaphor aside, the one chunk per slice may have been sparse but it did the job well: its smokiness complimented by scant, sweet slices of shallots.
The lamb meatballs, sadly, were all sauce and no meat. We could taste the (delicious) pomodoro sauce in every bite, but there wasn’t much to revel in underneath it — just a spongy texture of meat.
The disappointment didn’t last long: we smelled the Hot Velvety Nutella approach us even before we saw it. I could tell you about the richness, the not-too-thickness and just-right-sweetness of it, but you had better try it out yourself.
