La Ciccia, San Francisco
La Ciccia is an adorable Noe Valley eatery that has climbed to the top of the “Top Ten Italian in San Francisco” quite fast! It is another of my favorite restaurants, those that showcase a specific Italian region. The owners, Max and Lorella, are from Sardinia, and their food is very typical of this land. Some specialties of Sardinia are hard to find in “generic” Italian restaurants, like the Pane Carasau a very thin unleavened bread also called “music paper” for its thinness, or the Malloreddus, also known as gnocchetti sardi (sardinian gnocchis), a small semolina pasta delicious in a sausage sauce!
At La Ciccia, all these dishes are created with the freshest ingredients and a passion for the food. Sometimes your dish won’t be as refined as you might expect, but it’s real- real food, I mean! You will find Italian spoken in the dining room by the servers, the kitchen staff, and the customers- a friendly place with a hearty menu!
On our visit, we ordered the Spaghetti with Bottarga and Cauliflower, which were delicious, and the Malloreddus, served as tradition wants in a pork sauce. Both dishes were hearty and very, very good, although all my table found the pasta short on salt. The sauce was fine, but the pasta itself tasted like it wasn’t cooked in enough salt. When we mentioned this to our servers, the chef himself showed up at our table. “Are you guys from Italy?”, he asked in Italian. “Because, you know, I make them with less salt for the American customers!” We found funny that he’d think we have a different palate than his customers, but I think he was just trying to find the right balance and err on the side of “short on salt” rather than “salty”!
Other than this very small hiccup, our meal was fantastic! The service was delightful, and everything struck a note with us: the simple, almost bare decor (reminding us of the trattorie in Italy!), the friendly atmosphere, the lively conversation around us- a really nice experience for all of our table!
La Ciccia Sardinian Restaurant
291 30th St at Church,
San Francisco, CA 94131 USA
(415) 550-8114
Filed under: Restaurants, San Francisco
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