Cuisine teamed with ambience

Tra Luca Trattoria sticks with Northern Italian eats and decorations

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Southern Highlands is continuously expanding.

The residents have recently grown accustomed to the idea of having a grocery store, fast-food chain, gas station and coffee shop right down the road. But as far as restaurants go, there has been a very limited choice for those who prefer to dine out in close proximity to their homes.

With the recent opening of Tra Luca Trattoria, 11860 Southern Highlands Pkwy., their options just grew wider.

Tra Luca's owners, Luigi Bomparola and Carmine Vento, proprietor of Carmine's Little Italy and Ventano Italian Grill & Seafood, said they are proud of their new endeavor. The restaurant features Northern Italian cuisine and ambience.

"I grew up in Milan, and that is where I did a lot of training," Bomparola said. "So, that is my background, Northern Italian dishes."

Northern Italian cuisine often incorporates seafood, he explained.

Bomparola also served for a few years as the executive chef at Canaletto in The Venetian, which also specializes in Northern Italian fare, so he indeed knows the ins and outs of the cuisine and the restaurant business.

"About 40 percent of the menu has some seafood, but there are many dishes that don't have any seafood," he said.

The restaurant has a unique inlaid ceiling and an open kitchen, which is important to Bomparola, featuring a humongous Australian oven. He explained that if a kitchen is open, patrons can simply walk up to the area and watch what ingredients are going into their meals. It also makes a customer feel more comfortable to know the chefs are "not hiding anything," he said.

Bomparola has been in the restaurant business for 26 years, and he has spent 20 of them in the kitchen, he said proudly. And after 12 years of working in nearly windowless restaurants in casinos, Bomparola is ecstatic about being able to look outside when he wishes, and now living only minutes away from the restaurant, he is enjoying spending "quality family time" with his loved ones, something he said was nearly impossible for several years.

"I grew up in a restaurant family, a family of cooks, and I have opened several restaurants," he said.

Besides the daily menu at Tra Luca, open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week, there are three or four daily specials. Generally two of the specials are seafood dishes and the other one or two are either meat or pasta dishes.

"I'm very particular about freshness," Bomparola said. "I'd rather run out of a special than to serve something that is not very fresh. I use fresh ingredients every day."

The eatery also offers a wine list featuring about 60 selections, including numerous Italian wines, that can be purchased by the glass, half bottle and full bottle. The wines are priced between $21 and $135 and the corkage fee is $15.

The full meals are priced between $13 and $25 and sandwiches are about $10.

A unique sandwich that Tra Luca offers are the piadinas.

"It's a sandwich made with a thin pizza dough. They are very good. Only I make them, but of course they'll catch on," Bomparola said.

The two varieties offered are piadina al prosciutto, filled with prosciutto, fontina -- a rich and slightly sweet cheese -- mozzarella, tomatoes and arugola; and the piadina al salmone affumicato, filled with smoked salmon, mozzarella, goat cheese, arugola and tomatoes.

In addition, the menu offers Italian staples, such as lasagna and spaghetti and meatballs, as well as gnocchetti ai funghi, a ricotta dumpling pasta with mushrooms, pecans and other ingredients, and tagliolini aragosta e grappa, a pasta served in cream sauce and sauteed with lobster, shrimp, pistachios, asparagus and shallots.

"And we do almost anything to make customers happy," Bomparola said.

The restaurant seats 175 and has a bar with five poker machines -- the only area where smoking is allowed.