Under the Tuscan sun (or something like that) at Radda Trattoria
From Chef Boyardee to the Olive Garden, the American version of Italian food usually involves gloppy tomato sauce and gooey mountains of cheese, maybe some soggy pasta for an “authentic” touch. We’ve come to love our way of eating Italian, in the way that we love Mom’s meatloaf because it’s Mom’s, even if it’s just formed hamburger meat coated with ketchup.
Spaghetti and garlic bread is pretty damn good, but Radda Trattoria (1265 Alpine Ave., Boulder, 303-442-6100) is a whole lot better: Radda is staunch on authenticity, and its inspiration comes from Tuscany. But this isn’t the drippy, over-romanticized Tuscany of shitty romance movies. This is the Tuscany of meats, mushrooms, potatoes, and stout red wine. Radda at lunch is a lot of meat, a few salads and paninis, and a selection of pizzas. There’s no pepperoni here, and grow up if you don’t like anchovies on your pie.
There are more appetizers on the menu than anything else. Start lunch with a plate of salami Toscani, imported from New York City’s Salumeria Biellese. The whole plate is drizzled with olive oil, and each thin slice has a chunk or two of cracked black pepper for a hit of spice. Sure beats a basket of stale bread and cold butter.
Radda’s de facto mascot is the wild boar, that ill-tempered cousin of the chubby farm pig. He’s on the restaurant’s logo, a yellow shield with a white stripe and trotting boar, which is stamped all over. It’s fitting, then, to order the pappardelle al cinghiale, pasta with wild boar, spinach, and onions. The boar doesn’t taste much like Babe; instead it’s similar to pulled beef, slow-cooked to melt-in-your-mouth loveliness and sauced in its own juices. The interior of Radda has more in common with a Chipotle—high ceilings, exposed pipes—than a Tuscan villa, but with a mouthful of rich boar meat, you might as well be dining by a fire in San Gimignano, making eyes across the room at a hot, shy local dude.
And there’s not a drop of marinara in sight. Maggiano’s, eat your cuore out.
