Osteria Bevitrice オステリア ベヴトリーチッェ 022-711-0670

Website:  http://osteriabevitrice.blog.fc2.com/

Address:  仙台市青葉区中央1-6-25クリニックビル１F.   Located on the small street between Chuo-dori and Hirose-dori.  The street runs parallel to ハピナ名掛丁.

Map:  Scroll down to the bottom.

Lunch: 11:30 am – 2:30 pm. Dinner: 5 pm – 12am.

We passed this place a week or so ago and what caught our eyes was the multiple bottles of the Italian beer, Moretti, that we saw all over the place on our recent trip to Venice.  
Thinking this was a good sign that authentic Italian food would be served, we enthusiastically entered. 

Osteria Bevitrice was quite busy the night we ventured in and we were seated at the counter in front of the kitchen area.  When I saw the Classico Spaghetti Sauce jars I then had a change of heart and thought, “That’s not a good sign.”   This is the same simple spaghetti sauce that you can buy in any supermarket in America.  I decided not to go with the pasta.

We were immediately served two pieces of toasted bread and a dipping sauce that was a mixture of balsamic sauce and olive oil.  I thought it was a nice gesture, but the balsamic and olive oil flavors didn’t really mix well.  It should have been one or the other.  When I got the bill I realized that this “nice gesture” wasn’t so nice, as they charged us 300 yen each for it as a coperto, or a cover charge.  

600円 for this

I didn’t see a whole lot of pizza options for me on the menu, but I went with the Meat Pizza (1000 yen).  I asked the waitress what kind of meat would be on the pizza and she said it was a variety of different meats.  That sounded good enough for me.  My wife was getting a strange vibe from this place and only ordered the Caponata, seasonal veggies boiled in tomato sauce (580 yen).

My wife’s veggies came first.  I took a bite and the first thing that flashed in my head was “Not fresh.”   It tasted as if it came out of a can.  It wasn’t bad tasting, but it definitely wasn’t good, either.  It was cold tomato sauce served on top of cold, canned vegetables.   

旬の野菜のトマト煮カポナータ

I started to get a bit hopeful as I saw one cook kneading out the pizza crust, indicating that they weren’t using pre-made crusts.  But, again after one bite I realized we had made a mistake coming here.  The “variety of different meats” ended up being ground pork, and not a lot of it nor was it bursting with flavor.  This should have been called a diced mushroom with a dabbling of meat pizza, as there was much more mushrooms than meat on this pizza.  And the pizza was not much bigger in diameter than the fork.  I tore off a piece of the crust and found that it tasted like a warm cracker with almost no taste whatsoever.  Crackers are good for car sickness, not for fine dining.

肉屋のピザ

I won’t be returning to this restaurant and I don’t recommend it.  In order to get this bad taste out of my mouth, my wife and I went to Amo La Pizza the next day for another flavorful lunch, the way pizza should taste.

While doing some research I found out that Osteria Bevitrice is part of a restaurant group.  I’m afraid that I’m going to play the “guilty by association” card with the other restaurants in this group.  Here’s the link to those restaurants:    http://hayashi-design-office.com/index.html

View Larger Map