Geppetto

Frito Misto that’s as fresh as it gets.

“I love fried seafood because we're in New England.”

Boards of carefully curated antipasto.

“Antipasto platter is how I like to start every meal when I go to an Italian restaurant.”

And lasagna you’ll crave all year long.

“I always think of lasagna as sort of that stick to your ribs cold dish. It's actually one of our best sellers, even in the hot, hot summer.”

There are so many reasons you’re going to want to go to Geppetto.

Located at this sophisticated spot in Cambridge, Geppetto is a stunning space serving authentic Northern Italian cuisine from the kitchen of chef/owner Will Gilson.

“Geppetto is our northern Italian restaurant in our complex here in Cambridge Crossing.  We like the menu to change with the seasons here.  That just gives us the ability to make this restaurant always feel like even though there's some things that stay the same, there's always a seasonal touch to it, and we always get to support our local friends and farmers.”

The space itself is good for any night out, with floor to ceiling windows and comfy booths throughout.

“We wanted a restaurant space that felt warm; inviting, but also was a place where you could either be here on a date or here by yourself and still feel like you were perfectly welcome in here.  A place where people really got excited to look over the menu, pick out a nice bottle of wine and dig in here for the night.”

The menu features Northern Italian done right.  Right down to the pasta made daily in their dining room.

“Here we make pasta that we put through a roller, and then we make pasta that we extrude out of an extruder.  We have stuffed pastas that are being made by hand. We've got a crew that works on this workbench in the middle of the restaurant. That's where they produce all the handmade pastas. And they are really, really, really the feature of dining here at Geppetto.”

When dining at an Italian restaurant, an Antipasto Platter is always in order- and Geppetto’s truly hits the spot.

“We have some beautiful sopressata. We have a beautiful prosciutto di Parma on there, but then we change up the cheeses  Right now, we're using taleggio. We're also using pecorino Toscano.  But then we just have some beautiful olives on there, and some fresh grilled focaccia bread that we make in house. It’s a must order. You gotta start your meal with that.”

There’s the beautiful Burrata- topped with grilled figs and caponata with a brown butter vinaigrette and the Fried Mozzarella Cacio E Pepe- an upscale spin on a mozzarella stick, served over charred tomato and creamy stracciatella.

“Rather than breading it. We use shredded phyllo dough.  We chop it up, and then we dip the fontina, which is really just kind of aged mozzarella, and then a little bit of flour, a little bit of egg, and then into the shredded  phyllo dough, and then we fry. It gets this beautiful, crispy texture that's very light. And then we just top that off with some grated Pecorino Romano and some fresh cracked black pepper, just like you would have in a cacio e pepe pasta. But in this case, it's a fun appetizer.”

Other apps include this Fritto Misto- which combines fresh fried shrimp, calamari, and scallops with seasonal vegetables like this delicata squash and Geppetto’s meatballs which are made in a unique way.

“We take pork and mortadella and we put it through the meat grinder.  But instead of just serving plain meatballs, we then cook them, cool them, bread them, fry them, and serve them inside of a tomato brown butter sauce.   The meatball itself is crunchy on the outside, but still really tender and flavorful on the inside.  We're not serving these on top of a pile of spaghetti. We want to make sure that they are the feature of the appetizer.”

Since the pasta is as fresh as it gets, dishes like the Spicy Lobster Rigatoni are a no brainer.

“House made rigatoni pasta that we extrude every day here. Then we picked that up in a base of a lobster stock with saffron and cream, a little bit of vodka sauce, touch of Calabrian chili peppers in there. And then the star of the show, obviously, is there's about three ounces of lobster meat that's in the pasta, plus a half of a lobster tail on top. You're gonna love the spicy lobster rigatoni.”

There’s the Porcini Lasagna made with layers upon layers of wild mushrooms, béchamel, and a walnut rosemary pesto and the slow cooked Spaghetti Bolognese- a dish that’s a little different every time because it’s made with a combination of charcuterie scraps, that gets run through a meat grinder along with pork, then slow simmered to perfection.

“Our bolognese, I think, has a lot of depth, a lot of you know, really kind of great, great flavor to it. However, it's one that might be slightly different every time somebody comes, because it depends on whatever we're slicing that ends up inside of there.”

There’s the simple yet satisfying Chicken Milanese or the Lamb Sirloin Chops marinated in a fig infused balsamic and served with eggplant puree and charred peppers.

“You get the nice, grilled, salty lamb. You get a little bit of the sweetness from the balsamic on there. You get the depth from the eggplant puree that's on there, and then you get this lovely kind of bright flavor from the peppers.”

And an Italian classic gets a Japanese twist with the addition of miso in Geppetto’s Tiramisu.

“Our tiramisu should actually probably be called a tiramiso, because inside of the custard.  We have a little bit of miso paste that goes in there.  We top it off with a little bit of coffee caramel, and then we have a fennel seed infused cracker that goes on top of that. We take dark chocolate, we grate that over. Off to kind of get that final thing that makes it look like tiramisu.”

And from seafood to sweets.  Bolognese, burrata and beyond, next time you’re at Cambridge Crossing, you’ll be happy you came across Geppetto.