Ciao

In Italian, the word “Ciao” can mean hello or goodbye. But around here, Ciao means you are about to eat some of the best pizza in all of Greater Boston.

We are in Ball Square, Somerville, right across from the green line, and this is the newest location of Ciao restaurant. The original location is in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and they were one of the first places to make authentic Neapolitan pizza in Greater Boston. And now this is the latest and greatest Ciao location, where they are famous for those Neapolitan pizzas, handmade pastas and incredible desserts.

Marvin Posada is the chef and owner of this location. It's his first solo venture, and now that he's here in Somerville, he is turning out some extraordinary pizzas and pastas. In terms of atmosphere, this place is completely charming. It’s got about 30 seats in here, a small bar, a few different tables, and there's a semi open kitchen, so you can see the chefs working that pizza oven all day long.

Now you hear the phrase “Neapolitan pizza” thrown around a lot. So what exactly is it? Well, it's actually very specific. You have to use double zero flour, San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, real Parmesan, imported olive oil, just the simple and the best Italian ingredients. And the real key to any Neapolitan style pizza is the oven itself. It's a massive Italian dome oven, and they use real wood to fire this thing up. The oven reaches temperatures as high as 800 to 900 degrees. So you can cook a pie here in about 90 seconds.

The number one selling pizza here is the Margherita pizza. It has the perfect balance of textures and tastes. It is really super light to eat. When you hold it up, you can't believe how light it is. You get a nice, natural sweetness from the tomato, the creaminess of the mozzarella cheese, just that herbaceousness from the basil and that beautiful, soft, light addictive dough. The crust is so good you might want to eat it first. It's just the ultimate Margherita Pizza.

If you're looking for some tasty toppings, I recommend the Salsiccia Pizza. These guys make everything here from scratch, including their own sausage. This is a sweet Italian style sausage. The sausage has an intense depth of flavor, and then to make it even better, they add some Calabrian chilies to it. You get sweet, you get spicy, and you cannot wait to have another slice.

Here's a pizza I have never seen anywhere else. It's a corn Neapolitan style pizza. This has a mix of their house cheeses, lots of local sweet corn, and it's rounded out with some roasted red onion, zucchini, crispy bacon, and a little bit of truffle oil. It is vibrant, it is fresh. It is really sweet and creamy, and it's really good.

Now let's talk about pasta. Here at Ciao, they make their own pasta, fresh every single day. When the pasta comes out, it's a little bit coarse, and that just means it holds sauces that much better. So you can get a Shrimp Scampi here. The shrimp is cooked perfectly, lots of garlic, nice butter, little toasted breadcrumbs on top. It's just a simple and satisfying shrimp scampi.

The number one pasta at Ciao is definitely the Bolognese. It all starts out with a blend of beef and pork, and of course, they make their own rigatoni pasta. It has a nice wide mouth, so the pasta is full of sauce on the inside as well as on the outside. It's rich, it's creamy. That is pasta perfection.

One thing they don't have on the menu here is Chicken Parmesan, but they do have a Chicken Milanese. So this is a beautiful chicken cutlet that is pounded out, seasoned, and pan fried, and they serve it over spaghetti with garlic oil. They throw in some tomatoes as well for some sweetness and some parmesan cheese. You know the way a chicken parm can really weigh you down by the end of the meal? Not this. You can eat this entire chicken Milanese and you're still gonna be hungry for more. And that's a good thing, because we still have an incredible dessert to get to.

Like everything else at Ciao, the desserts are all made fresh in house. So if you order a cannoli here, they are going to fill it fresh to order. And if you want something really special for dessert, just order the Nutella pizza. There's something about that magical combination of chocolate hazelnut, banana, and strawberry that works great on a crepe, and honestly, I think it works even better on a pizza. So how does a banana strawberry Nutella pizza taste? It tastes like heaven, sweet, juicy, and yet somehow it's perfectly balanced. Ciao, baby! So whether you want to come in for dessert, for dinner, for lunch, eat in or take out, you will definitely chow down at Ciao restaurant.