Jen’s gallery was an amazing success this weekend so we decided to go out and celebrate. Jen hadn’t been to Bella Luna down the street and it seemed like the perfect time to visit the unique JP eatery at Hyde Square.

Bella Luna

403-405 Centre Street
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
(617) 524-6060
(maps)

www.milkywayjp.com/bellaluna.html

Bella Luna is probably the closest thing to a Santa Cruzy joint you can find in Boston and of course it’s very fitting that it’s in Jamaica Plain. Bella Luna and The Milky Way bar share the building in a very unique pairing of a quasi-chic and artsy restaurant up top and a hippster bar and club downstairs including candlepin bowling and pool.

The cozy interior is decorated with lots of interesting art and has an open kitchen. The most striking feature though is the lighting which bathes the entire dining room with deep magenta, red, and pink light- too bad it made taking good pictures impossible. After 25 minutes (on a Sunday) we were seated just a few feet from the open kitchen. I was stoked.

From our vantage point we could see them tossing the pizza dough and setting out everyone’s entrees. And the best part is that we got to smell all the food as it came off the line.

Jen was famished from a long day of intense arting and socializing so we ordered some antipasto to start us off. I was very impressed by the beatiful plating of amazing prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, provolone, long-stem marinated artichoke hearts, calamata olives, roasted red peppers with balsamic vinaigrette and crostini. The fresh tasting melange was just the thing to get us excited about our entrees on the way.

I’ve never seen an artichoke served like this: nice altitude.

I ordered the Sage Gnocchi served with smoked ham, cherry tomatoes & asparagus in a sage cream sauce. The Gnocchi were cooked perfectly and the mix of flavor between the smokey ham, fresh tomatoes and a well balanced cream sauce was scrumptious. Local Chef Omar J. Martinez put a lot of thought into combing the perfect flavors for this dish and it really showed. The surprise capers were also appreciated.

Jen ordered an unbelievable spinach and portabello ravioli with an herb cream sauce. This wasn’t just your average ravioli either. Jen said it was the best Ravioli she’s ever tried. Considering the intensity of Jen’s 25 year committment to ravioli, my guess is this won’t be the last time we end up at bella luna.

Also, Jen said the Key Lime Pie martini she started off with was the greatest invention of all time. Who could have guessed that Jen would like drinking pie?

For dessert, we split a fresh fruit tart with blackberries, rasberries, mango, and peach covered with marmelade and sitting on lemon marscapone in a tart shell with some strawberry sauce and vanilla creme to dip in. Holy crap that sounds good when I read it! It was at least as good to taste in person and pretty cheap at $6.

Bella Luna was equally good the last time I was there last year with Crystal. All the dishes are inspired and the sauces have been impressive on everything I’ve tried. Their wine list is very inexpensive, but carefully chosen, i.e. you won’t spend a lot and you’ll still get some yummy wine. In fact, I’d say Bella Luna is a very inexpensive restaurant for what they offer.

This place could easily bump up the prices, but I don’t think it would be such a community favorite if it went after ritzy clientelle. One of the nice things about Bella Luna is that you can go out for a nice dinner without feeling like you have to dress to the nines and eat macaroni and cheese for the rest of the week.

I do have one complaint about our dinner on Sunday though: the service. We had to wait a while to be acknowledged when we came in, and had a very hard time getting our waiter’s attention. I asked that our empty cocktail glasses (see above) be removed 3 times before they were cleared from the table- it was already time for dessert.

Furthermore when I asked for a glass of their Spanish white wine from Rias Baixas (I forgot the name because the wine list was cleared from the table before we got a chance to look at it), he served me a glass of Rioja. Even if you mixed up your Spanish, it should be clear that a Rioja is not a white wine. Too bad about the shoddy service because it was the only distraction from a wonderful dining experience.

However unfortunate the service was on Sunday, considering how amazing the food and ambiance is and how incredibly low priced it is, it’s got to be the best place to go out for a date or other special occasion in JP.

• Ambiance: 10
• Service: 5
• Plating: 10
• Taste: 9
• Value: 9
• Festivus Gastronomicus Rating: Fantasticus

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Reviews, $$. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.