Tuscan Kitchen

Tuscan Brands has some beautiful restaurants, including the Seaport, Burlington and Newburyport, but I think this group's most gorgeous restaurant so far is Tuscan Kitchen in Salem, New Hampshire. 

The restaurant is inside the Artisan Hotel, which is on the grounds of Tuscan Village, which is a massive complex of restaurants, retail, housing and businesses. This is like a city in and of itself. 

VP of Operations, Chris LaBella, shares owner Joe Farrell's passion for Tuscan Italian cuisine.

Here at Tuscan Kitchen, we try to celebrate authentic regional Italian so you'll see everything from all everything from all the different regions of Italy, as well as some classic American fare.

This is a stunning space that really offers four separate dining experiences.  I'm a bar type of guy, and this is a beautiful bar with about three dozen seats.  There's two patios facing the street. There's a beautiful, spacious dining room looking right into that open kitchen. 

Personally, I love an open kitchen. Everything you see is what you get and it's going to make its way to your table. 

Before or after dinner, you have to head up to the rooftop bar. There's fire pits out there, a special menu and really enjoy the view of Tuscan Village.  But I think the best way to experience this restaurant is at this table in the Wine Library. If you're going to book this table, please invite me. 

Our guest loves sitting there. You're definitely in the middle of all the action, but you're also still a little bit separated, so it's semi private, and it's one of my favorite tables of all time. 

I have certain automatic orders. If I see it on the menu, I order it here. The antipasto is an absolute must. You can choose a combination of three, four or six, meats, cheeses and vegetables. 

You know what's a dining experience without wine and cheese, right? So our salumi formaggi is customizable for each table, so you're going to get to select some of your favorites or try something you've never had before.

I love meatballs, but you can kind of get meatball fatigue. Here, it is totally different. It is a giant meatball with pomodoro sauce and fonduta.  It's a different, really delicious type of flavor.  

This is an eight ounce meatball. So once again, this is an item that either you want to share or maybe you don't want to share, but you're just going to grab a big spoon, take a bite just like at nonna's house.

The pizza here is an absolute must if you're not going to get one for yourself, at least get one to split with your friends. 

We have a beautiful Mara Forni oven so you're going to get nice crisp crust, ooey gooey toppings, fresh mozzarella and it's something that should be shared on every table. 

Cacio e Pepe pie is a brilliant combination of pasta and pizza.  There's a four cheese blend of mozzarella, fontina, pecorino and parmesan and there's some peppercorn too. 

I think the true way to test the quality of a pizza is to order the Margherita. This one is made with San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, basil and olive oil. Really, the essence of Italian cooking is freshness and simplicity, and this delivers.

 We try to take simplicity with all of our pizzas, I would say, highlighting the fresh ingredients, highlighting the oven, highlighting our signature dough, and it really makes for an awesome pizza.  

If you're a sucker for tableside prep, like me, you must get the Tagliatelle al Tartufo.  The process starts with them pouring the cognac onto that huge block of 24 month aged parmesan reggiano cheese.  Then the chef scrapes up all that delicious cheese.  Then the noodles go right inside and the chef stirs up the noodles with the cheese.  Then the chef drops the noodles right into the sauce pan so all that flavor gets right inside.   And if that wasn't enough flavor for you, they grate the truffle on top of the pasta.  Thank you, chef. I'm an Italian food heaven. 

It is definitely an awesome presentation. And when that enters the room, you definitely see it going to table after table afterwards. 

The bolognese is one of the best things here and when you add the shave Parmesan, this is fantastic. 

This is a slow simmered Ragu of beef, veal and pork with some San Marzano tomatoes, directly imported from Italy, served with a beautiful pappardelle pasta. This is  the most iconic Italian comfort dish that there is.

The showstopper on this menu is definitely the bone in ribeye. Ribeye has so much flavor the bone gives it even a little bit more flavor. On top is an onion marmalade. There's roasted potatoes and broccolini. You're going to need a whole bottle of red wine to bring this thing down.

So our tomahawk is a 48 ounce Tomahawk, long bone signature item here at Tuscan kitchen. This is another item that you can either keep to all you know, keep to yourself, or you can share with your table. It's served on a big Boos block board, and when that walks to the dining room, everybody's neck sort of shifts that way. 

For dessert. I think the best selection is the warm chocolate torta…This thing is warm, cold, crunchy and soft. Checks every possible flavor box. 

This is a non traditional take on, basically a chocolate lava cake. So you're going to get warm chocolate in the center. When you break it open, some really great dark chocolate pieces around the outside.  And that's finished with gelato, of course.

 This restaurant really has the best of both Italian worlds, that old school food preparation and yet new school Italian charm at Tuscan Kitchen in Salem, New Hampshire.