A favorite son has returned to Houston. Luigi Ferre, who was at the stove at Damian’s for well over a decade before skipping over the bridge to operate Luigi’s Cucina Italiana on The Strand in Galveston for 16 years, has come back to the Bayou City.
Earlier this week he opened his own little spot – again called Luigi’s Cucina Italiana – on Audley just south of W. Alabama. (Audley is across from Lamar High School’s athletic field.)
The former location of Ruth Meric Catering has been transformed, with rich warm faux-painted walls in burnt sienna and deep golden sunset red. There’s a generous use of dark woods, and the tables and chairs are classic trattoria style. The overall effect reminds me of a simpler and smaller version of Damian’s. It’s cozy inside, with the fireplace in the corner and the bar tucked away to the right of the front door. Future plans call for a patio on the south side of the building, says Ferre.
We stopped in for lunch earlier this week. The first highlight of the meal was the house salad that is served with lunch entrees. It’s a mix of baby greens, which is fairly standard. The remarkable part was the well-balanced dressing that is not too vinegary, not too oily, not too sweet and not too garlicky. There were no nuts or croutons or clever doodads on the dressed greens. It was a simple and amazingly perfect salad.
We ordered the mushroom ravioli in tomato cream sauce (the ravioli were a little thick and chewy for my taste) and chicken Marsala (which my guest declared the best she had ever eaten, photo below). Other lunch possibilities include penne vodka, spaghetti Bolognese, lasagne, veal, trout – the usual Northern Italian slate as edited for Americans.
At dinner the menu expands to include osso buco, grilled veal chop, gnocchi with gorgonzola pesto cream and grilled sausage and linguine with seafood. There is no pizza currently on the menu because, as Ferre explained, the kitchen is not big enough to accommodate a pizza oven.
For dessert, espresso came with just-baked biscotti. We also liked the bavarese alla Luigi, which is something like panna cotta: a springy custard-based treat that contained wine-marinated strawberries and came with a scoop of gelato (photo below).
I love that this part of Houston, a bit of a restaurant mini desert, suddenly has this pretty little old-fashioned Italian restaurant from a veteran chef/restaurateur. It’s decidedly not hip or cutting edge. But my sense is that it could easily become one of your favorites.
LUIGI’S CUCINA ITALIANA, 3030 Audley just south of W. Alabama, 281-888-9037, luigiscucinaitaliana.com