Tremezzo Ristorante
The meal starts with fresh focaccia. Then comes the pizza, the pasta, the steak and the seafood. Throw in a cocktail and some tiramisu, and you're in for a tremendous experience at Tremezzo.
Located on Lowell Street in Wilmington, Massachusetts, Tremezzo is a different kind of Italian eatery, run by 25 year restaurant industry veteran, Rick Lowe.
Rick Lowe: "Tremezzo is a family community restaurant here in Wilmington Mass. We serve great Italian-style food... Everything's built basically around our brick oven. The colors, we took off the brick oven from the tile to paint the walls, to do the flooring, to do the seating. So we want to have that nice, warm feel. As you can see, the fire in the background makes people feel comfortable. It's kind of open, airy. We have a dining room which is separate from the lounge area. So you can kind of have two feelings. You've got the energy zone in the lounge area as well as the kind of more quiet family-style over in the dining area."
As far as the menu goes, it's definitely Italian influenced. So you can find generous salumi boards, sweet and crispy shrimp Grand Marnier, hand-rolled meatballs served over herb ricotta, super-cheesy chicken parm, and homemade gnocchi. But there are also some surprises, like the "Daddy Mac", an over the top macaroni and cheese packed with bacon, pulled pork, mushrooms, and caramelized onions. So, it's certainly not "exclusively" Italian around here.
Rick Lowe: "You know, I try to stay away from the word "authentic," because when you go to Italy. You're not gonna find chicken brocolli ziti. You're not gonna find spaghetti and meatballs. You're not gonna find chicken parm. That's all American-style Italian food. So we try to stay away from the word "authentic." We do take a lot of our recipes and use the Italian authenticity with those but we have some fantastic stuff that's a little bit outside the box as well."
Tremezzo's top selling pasta is the Chicken Broccoli Ziti, and it's the kind of Italian-American comfort food just about everybody can agree on.
Rick Lowe: "The Chicken Brocolli Ziti is, we call it CBZ for short because restaurant people are all about acronyms. The CBZ is something that people recognize, you know, they understand it. The broccoli and is fresh. The pasta is not overcooked. Plenty of chicken. And it's a bountiful dish."
Since Tremezzo's woodstone brick oven is such a centerpiece for the restaurant, their light and airy Neapolitan style pizzas take up a big slice of the sales here, and they can be fired up in just five minutes. Like the Picante Pizza with mozzarella, sausage, pepperoni, and caramelized onions. Or the sweet and tangy Barbecue Chicken Pizza.
Rick Lowe: "We use buratta on that and the buratta is a rich, creamy cheese and it cooks down with the chicken and the barbecue sauce. It's our best seller by far. And once, the buratta, the cream from the burrata and the sweetness from the barbecue with the chicken, it's just a really great pizza. And it's something that people can identify with. They understand what barbecue sauce is. They don't always understand burrata, but once you have it once, you're gonna go back to that pizza."
Another dish that keeps customers coming back, especially carnivore customers, is the Grilled Angus Hanger Steak with mixed veggies over smashed potatoes.
Rick Lowe: "And the Hanger Steak, if cooked right, it is fantastic. It's nice and tender. We cook it; slice it and then we put mixed vegetables on top of that. We put the steak on top of that. We put onion rings on top of that. And then we finish it off with a lemon vinigarette. So it's quite a decadent meal but it's fantastic and for the price point we have it at, you're not gonna find a better steak or a better value."
But if you want to try a dish that's as unique as it is delicious, you need to try Tremezzo's signature Scallop and Bacon Risotto.
Rick Lowe: "So we start off with a fantastic risotto, Parmesan Risotto. We take our scallops and we sear them down and we get fresh, fresh, scallops, large scallops. We have chives and bacon, obviously as well, because bacon goes good with anything. It makes everything better. And then we finish it off with a dollop of sour cream. The genesis of this Scallop Bacon Risotto was kind of a loaded baked potato style of deal with the bacon, with the chives, with the sour cream. And we just decided to do it with scallops and risotto. Scale of one to 10, it's about a 13-1/2."
So, even if this isn't the most authentic Italian restaurant around, it's still one of the most authentically enjoyable restaurant experiences you can have.
Rick Lowe: "The restaurant experience is not just the food, it's not just the drink, it's not just the service, or the ambiance, or the atmosphere. It's the full circle. And then, when they get to the seat, they get some warm focaccia bread that's fantastic that we make here in-house. That when the server gets to the table, it's all smiles and they eat a great meal and they have a great dessert and the experience of the service was fantastic. And when they leave, everybody in the restaurant says 'goodbye' to them and they also say 'thank you.' And they mean that. And that's big to me. And that's what I want the guests to feel like every single time."
