Si Cara
In Italian ‘Si Cara’ means ‘Yes, dear’.
And with perfectly executed pizza, a casual comfortable space and some of the best garlic breads around, you too will be saying ‘Yes dear’ when asked if you want to go to Si Cara.
Set on Mass Ave in Cambridge, Si Cara is the brainchild of Chef Michael Lombardi, who created this spot in homage to his Nonna, who would always answer ‘Si Cara’ whenever he asked for real Italian home cooking.
“I think Italian cooking has always been based upon simplicity. And it's what makes it really special cuisine. The idea that things like pizza, wine. They're very simple, very approachable. And we just want to take all the elements that make it great and focus on that every day. So we can have a product that is more than the sum of its parts.”
The space itself falls inline with the theme of simplicity- with a small bar at the front serving carefully curated wines and craft cocktails and a dining room where the vibe fluctuates from lunch to dinner. All in full view of their busy open kitchen.
"We put the open kitchen in so everyone has to walk by the pizza oven. It brings a lot of energy into the space people can see what we're doing back there. And it's really lively.
Pizza is the star of the Si Cara menu - made in an oven that immediately catches your eye.
"The style of pizza that we make is called canotto, which means dinghy, it's like a life raft. It has a puffier kind of wider crust. It's super airy, it's super delicate, and it's completely sourdough. When someone takes a first bite..we want them to experience the freshness of the ingredients we have and we want that moist, soft crumb that we get from the crust that we've developed.”
Traditionalists should start with Si Cara’s Margherita topped with two types of mozzarella and finished with basil, sea salt and olive oil.
"The margarita is the most iconic pizza. It's super simple, but it's super flavorful. And even with all the creations we come up with, it's our number one selling pizza."
From there, the menu gets creative with options like this take on Greek Spanikopita- topped with garlic cream, spinach, feta and dill. Or the Spicy Miso- an Asian take on Neapolitan pie.
“The spicy miso ramen pizza is kind of our take on an Italian sausage pizza but instead of going the Italian route, we kind of went an Asian route. And we do that with sesame seeds, an egg, scallions and a spicy miso tomato sauce."
And for the flavor of your favorite steakhouse on top of a pizza, there is nothing quite like the Steakhouse Pie.
"The steakhouse pie is just this idea of like if you're going to a steakhouse, you're gonna get this super rich meal. So we made kind of like a potato au Gratin style pizza. We slice potatoes thinly. We put gruyere cheese, a little garlic cream, some parmesan cheese. We put some fresh thyme leaves on top and on the side we serve a beef carpaccio in place of the full steak. It gets grated horseradish, a little sea salt and olive oil. We want you to get a little bit of spiciness from the horseradish, the creaminess from the garlic, and the potato and just all those flavors coming together and giving you that feeling of you're in a really nice steak house."
Since they have all that delicious dough on hand, it makes its way through the menu with lunch offerings like their meatball sub.
“We take pizza dough and we cook it hot and fast. So it's kind of more like a pita. It's open airy, in the middle. And then we make our own meatballs in house. Parmesan cheese, a little bit of ricotta garlic butter, some basil and it's a really nice bite. It's soft, it's rich, and has a lot of flavor.”
The dough is also featured in their Si Cara’s truly epic garlic bread.
"It's more like a garlic boat honestly. We take some pizza dough. Put some garlic cream, some roasted garlic butter and parmesan cheese. We bake it in the hot pizza oven. We spread another garlic butter on top with some fresh raw garlic. Some parsley, we put chili flake olive oil and it's just everything you want in a garlic bread."
Beyond pizza and apps, the Si Cara menu offers traditional Italian dishes.
“The majority of our menu is focused on pizza, but we do things outside of that. So we have an eggplant parmesan, we fry eggplant, cut it up into small strips and serve it with our tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese…We also have a chicken cacciatore. We do tomato sauce, some olive, some mushrooms, some onions, and a braised chicken thigh that just kind of gets roasted in the oven at the finish serve that with some bread on the side. It's a great alternative to pizza if you're coming in, or if you just want to have a meal at the bar.”
And whether you partake in pizza, parms or that garlic bread perfection, you're going to be glad you said yes, to Si Cara.
