Of an Italian restaurant

I love a restaurant recommendation, especially when it becomes a new favorite.

An adult student of mine recommended Pulcinella as an Italian restaurant with great Neapolitan pizza and ambiance--enough to pique my interest. My boyfriend and I went Sunday night and shared a pizza and a plate of pasta. I started with the pizza, and it was really quite good--thin, but doughy crust just a little burnt in places on the bottom and fresh toppings. But the pasta was really something else--we had ordered the strascinati alla norma: oval-shaped pasta with requesón (ricotta-like cheese), eggplant, and San Marzano tomato sauce. It was unbelievably good.

But it wasn't just the food that was good. The restaurant has an intimate, homey feel to it and the service we had was really well-executed. We had an early dinner reservation (yes, 9.15 p.m. is early for Spaniards for dinner) and shortly after we arrived the place had filled up. There was plenty of wait staff, our food arrived promptly, and the waiter didn't think twice when we asked for glasses of water (on a number of occasions restaurants here have told me that they don't serve agua del grifo--tap water).

I have rarely, if ever, felt so satisfied with both how I was treated and the quality of the food in a restaurant in Madrid.