Amaro is an Italian herbal liqueur that’s traditionally consumed after dinner as a digestif. The best-known amaro is arguably Fernet-Branca—you might remember when tech bros were inexplicably gulping down shots of Fernet for status a few years back—but there are many varieties of amaro. Described in the plural form, they are amari—and you enter the fittingly-named Italian restaurant and wine shop Amari through a wall lined with them. It feels like a promise: “You’ll want to eat up and stay for a drink.” And Amari meets that promise beautifully.
An airy space with a wood-and-metal interior and a broad patio overlooking the courtyard of southwest retail, office and residential plaza UnCommons, Amari checks so many boxes—pastas and pizzas, rib-sticking mains, housemade focaccia—that it’s tough to say what its biggest draw is, but the breads ($9 apiece) are the perfect place to start. The herb, tomato and basil and garlic miso focaccia are flavor-packed and properly spongy, perfect for mopping up one of four dips: basil pesto, Calabrian honey, classic tomato and whipped ricotta ($3 each, or $10 for one of each). Paired with one of Amari’s daily cocktail specials, these bites absolutely satisfy.
Don’t fill up, though, because there’s much more to enjoy. The little gem Caesar ($18) and Italian chopped ($17) salads go above and beyond expectations; you can add chicken, steak, shrimp or salmon to either of them for an extra price, but they’re already so hearty, doing so is nearly overkill. Starters include some killer apps, including a sesame arancini richly flavored with pork sausage and taleggio cheese ($16), and shrimp scampi in uni-tomato butter piled on focaccia toast ($18).
Amari’s sourdough-crust pizzas, baked with the same sure hand as those breads, are similarly loaded. They vary in price ($19-$35) and range from a simple but sublime margherita with fresh basil and burrata, up to a mighty truffle pie topped with truffle gouda, fior di latte, black truffle and a taleggio cream sauce. And the pastas are just as varied: a beef-and-pork Bolognese rigatoni ($25); a campanelle with crab, tomato, fennel, pesto and creme fraiche ($29); a lobster ravioli with ricotta, shellfish brodo, lemon and opal basil ($38) and more.
The main dishes are the kind of solid crowd-pleasers you’d want from a neighborhood Italian joint, including chicken cacciatore ($33), veal piccata ($44) and a pan roasted branzino ($39) served with smoked bacon, cranberry beans, red vein sorrel and lemon aioli. But as delicious as these plates are—and they are, very much so—you can’t be blamed if you tap out after the starters or pizza … so long as you enjoy that post-meal digestif.
One of the best things about Amari is reaching the point where you’re able to test the name above the door. The staff of Amari is expert in the namesake liqueur; trust them to pick out a few glasses to suit your tastes. And if you like what they pour, take some home with you from the compact but loaded Italian market at the front of the house. That great wall of bottles isn’t there just for its good looks. But it could be.
AMARI ITALIAN KITCHEN & WINE SHOP UnCommons, 6825 Tom Rodriguez St. #100, 725-285-0450, amarilv.com. Lunch takeout & delivery, daily, noon-3 p.m.; dinner, Sunday-Thursday, 5-9 p.m, Friday-Saturday, 5-10 p.m.
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