Table Talk: Casanova

Nina: Maia and I were once again craving a food adventure. This is not a rare occurrence– we co-founded Yeater, after all.

Maia: I immediately noticed Casanova on move-in day; the only thing that had previously adorned the corner was the restaurant “The Place To Be.” The restaurant’s LED sign now flickers as ‘..e Pla.. To.. e’– its broken letters are a sad reminder that the name was never true. So, upon returning to campus this year, I was thrilled to see this new Park Street addition. 

Nina: Stepping inside Casanova feels like a step outside of New Haven. The medium-sized restaurant boasts a modern, largely grey-scale interior, one that certainly doesn’t harmonize with the Wooster Square or Chapel Street vibe. This is no complaint, though; It’s a nice break from the go-tos. Casanova flaunts their pizza oven shamelessly: There is no untraditional “New Haven Style pizza” business. It’s all about the Neapolitan. 

Maia: I first noticed the “The French Laundry” cookbook on the welcome table. My interest was immediately piqued. I am a big fan, of course. It seemed unusual to me to have a different restaurant’s cookbook as the first sight you see when you are taken to your table. However, after a quick Google-stalk, we confirmed the head chef, Joseph Lannacone, was a proud alumnus of not just The French Laundry, but also New York’s famous Le Bernadin, Crown Shy, Vestry, and even New Haven’s own Encore by Goodfellas.

Nina: The crowd was a mix of Yale-affiliates and middle-aged Italians who all seemed to know the owner. 

Maia: I looked around, trying to get the vibe of the restaurant. Inside, the scene was defined by dark interiors, orange velvet lined couch cushions, a wall library of colorful books, and a giant, pop-art bust of an Italian man in a renaissance wig adorned the purple wall. It was a hard vibe to grasp: not necessarily a familiar atmosphere, but the space wasn’t uncomfortable, either. 

Nina: And our waiter was from Naples! First day on the job! Woohoo! 

Maia: What if he tells all of his customers that…

Nina: I have no proof, but for my sanity, that’s wrong. 

Maia: Anyways… let’s talk appetizers. The menu was immediately enticing. Whipped ricotta! Roasted eggplant! Burrata salad! Beef carpaccio! I mean… C’mon now! Ugh–kale caesar too?! I told Nina she had to decide because I am simply too indecisive to make any choices from this epic list. 

Nina: I too was contributing to our spiral of indecisiveness. So I asked the waiter. If you’ve ever dined out with me, you know I tend to get the waiter involved in our decision making. 

Maia: “Do you think you can help us decide on appetizers?” we asked. He replied with a: “I don’t— this is my first day.” 

Nina: He did eventually tell us that he’d tried the Nerano pizza and that it was just like Naples. 

Maia: We ended up with the Whipped Ricotta with Mushrooms, the Kale Caesar, and of course, the Nerano Pizza. 

Nina: The whipped ricotta was probably my favorite, although the accompanying toasted country loaf bread was slightly lacking (though I must add that I’m a snob when it comes to sourdough bread). The pizza, specifically the dough, was delightful. No complaints on that carb. The zucchini was fried to perfection and made for a lovely white pie. 

Maia: The salad was the weak link. It was fine…. I guess.

Nina: It had blobs of dressing in it. You could pick up a piece of kale and it would have a tablespoon of unflavored caesar dressing blanketing it. And I never really hate on a caesar. But all salad commentary aside, I’d easily come back for the Nerano pizza and ricotta toast.

Maia: We were picking slowly at the salad in front of us for what felt like three hours. Mr. Neapolitan hadn’t even come to get our empty plates yet, so we wondered how much longer for the two pastas to come. We had decided on the Sweet Potato Caramelle–a stuffed pasta that resembles pieces of candy–and the Spaghetti and Meatballs (they were sadly out of the corn agnolotti and the gnudi). It got to the point where we had to ask the question, “Are the pastas coming?” He told us it wouldn’t be more than 5 more minutes. 

Nina: Unfortunately it was. A long 15.

Maia: The pasta was cooked very well, but the tomato sauce on the meatball dish was too acidic and had no depth of flavor. Imagine blended raw tomatoes warmed up with no seasoning. Yet it wasn’t bad. Something about it was nostalgic and tasted like what I begged my parents for when I was 5. So I kept eating it. 

Nina: The meatballs were somewhat dry.

Maia: They weren’t that dry!

Nina: The Caramelle was a more interesting bite. The crispy sage and crispy speck carried the dish. Aside from that, the dough was floppy, soaked in butter, and stuffed with a sweet potato filling that tasted exactly like sweet potatoes and about nothing else. 

Maia: It's hard to make a bad dish with sage, butter, pasta, pork and sweet potato, so you wouldn't need to convince me to eat it again. But a dish that was a 6 could be an easy 8 with some adjustments.

Nina: All critiques aside, we’d return. Casanova has a lot of potential, but there is certainly room for improvement. And especially when compared to the surrounding restaurants, it shines. 

TLDR; 

Price: $30-40

Food: 7.5/10

Ambience: 8/10

Service: 6.5/10 

Overall: 7.5/10

Our Summary: Great option for a nicer dinner — come with friends, family, or like us, as an excuse to treat ourselves after a long week of school. You’ll definitely get some tasty bites (try the Nerano and the Ricotta Toast). It’s fairly priced. Casanova is quite new and needs to work out some kinks (mainly with service, availability, and some slight food adjustments), but it’s absolutely a neighborhood upgrade and we’ll be back!