A funeral parlor turned Italian eatery.
Talk about things that make you go “hmmmm.”
Or, in this case, “mmmmm.”
News that the long-closed Reilly Funeral Home on East Pennington Street was being transformed into a restaurant specializing in artisan pizza and pasta generated quite a buzz earlier this year. And quite frankly, such an endeavor could be creepy or inappropriately kitschy. Well, neither is the case.
But Reilly Craft Pizza & Drink chef-owner Tyler Fenton and his brother/partner, Zach, have an amazing space — it respects the historic building’s architecture while creating a cool, urban-yet-rustic aura. Reilly may have been a funeral home, but it sure doesn’t feel like one.
If the food weren’t so distractingly delicious, you could easily spend an entire afternoon just staring at the surroundings. But, the food can stand up to its eyecatching setting, particularly the pizza.
The dough in the pizza crusts — which also double as the bread used for the lunchtime only sandwiches — uses very little yeast and has a long proof before it’s topped with housemade fennel sausage or roasted crimini mushrooms and then cooked in the gas-fired pizza oven. The resulting blistered crust has a wonderful texture — airy, almost like focaccia, but still with some chew and a gentle crunch. The crust is a standout whether it’s topped with crisp Calabrian salami (think pepperoni on spice steroids) and a melted blanket of mozzarella and creamy fontina ($13) or thin-cut, buttery Yukon gold potato slices, accented with woodsy rosemary and quality olive oil and buried beneath fluffy drifts of unmelted Pecorino ($12).
A standout pasta at Reilly is the papardelle ($15), fat, al dente ribbons bathed in a thick, earthy mushroom sauce studded with meltingly tender short ribs. This is a beef lover’s paradise.
Non meat-eaters will appreciate the inventive salads that bring together ingredients like sweet, juicy watermelon cubes and tangy goat cheese ($7). A heavy hand with the lemony vinaigrette left the arugula and frisee in the salad a little droopy, but it was still a lovely salad, especially with toasted pine nuts adding crunch.
See the full review in Thursday's Caliente.
