Casa di Campagna Boasts Rustic Design, Italian Cuisine

The corner of Columbia and Kane streets is about to get a little busier.

The much-anticipated Italian restaurant Casa di Campagna opens on the northern, and much less busy, stretch of Columbia Street on Friday for lunch and dinner.

Serving your standard Italian fare - caprese salad (homemade mozzarella, tomatoes, basil), baked clams, calamari, puttanesca, baked ziti, shrimp scampi - Campagna doesn't seem to be making inroads with creativity.

But while the menu may lack za za zoom, the restaurant itself makes up for it. The interior, exterior, outdoor patio and tables are all made from salvaged wood from a 100-year-old barn in North Carolina.

"This is all reclaimed lumber," said manager and woodworker Dan Renna.

The restaurant is a good size, with a bar and a few tables up front, a rear dining room and a large outdoor patio that features yet another bar. The patio is even big enough to accomodate a smoking section.

Owner Anthony Matrone's first had the idea for the restaurant six years ago, Renna said. A timeline of the restaurant's story will be on the wall, along with other tchochkes, oil paintings of landscapes, quart size tomato sauce cans and bottles of A1 steaksauce.

"The creation of Casa di Campagna started as a vision back in 2005 and was set in motion during a discussion with a friend who had an opportunity to obtain the special materials required to construct our vision," the timeline reads.

One Columbia Street resident said based on the look of the place, she wasn't sure how she felt about it.

"At first I liked all the wood," she said of the exterior of the restaurant, but added that the "embellishments," like the aforementioned tchochkes and tomato sauce cans, were over the top.

Both of Casa di Campagna's chefs, pizza chef Frank Gurdascione and kitchen chef Francesco Martinelli, were born, and learned to cook, in Italy.

Of course, a restaurant is nothing without great food. We'll be reporting back on that.