Are you familiar with the term home-base restaurant? It is defined as a restaurant usually within walking distance of your home that asks little of you, yet it is always there for you. It is your favorite neighborhood joint, the place you rely on because the food and drinks are always straightforward and satisfying, and when you go, you always see someone you know from the neighborhood.
For many years, Café Europa was that kind of spot in the Crestwood Shops. Now, it has morphed into Bacaro Primo, the new Italian-American restaurant from Todd Schulte and Cory Dannehl, who only one year ago opened their sea-faring restaurant and tiny bar, Earl’s Premier near Brookside, and just like that there is a new home-base restaurant to love in Crestwood.
Italian cuisine is still considered America’s number one favorite global cuisine, which is perhaps why Schulte and Dannehl zeroed in on it for their second concept together. It is food that is easy to understand, and even easier to love.
Bacaro Primo offers a highly stylized version of Italian American comfort food served in a small but elegant footprint. It offers lunch, happy hour, or dinner in a busy and stylish shopping center. Warm brown woods, brick, and white walls create a cozy atmosphere. The wall between the two levels was removed, which greatly expanded the bar seating by wrapping it around the opening. It has now paired New-World art and Old-World-inspired light fixtures that give off just the perfect amount of warm light at night. All the right decorative details are there to make Bacaro Primo feel totally casual with just the right amount of class.
The cocktail bar in the front room serves a nice list of mostly Italian wines, and beer and a cocktail list that leans into its Italian roots with several spritz and a solid negroni, along with a variety of after-dinner amaros. In the main dining room, there is a full charcuterie bar where people can sit and watch them slice and serve an impressive variety of Italian cured meats and cheeses sourced from all over the world, such as prosciutto do parma, cotto, speck, sopressata, calabrese, capicola, and nduja; and cheeses, including toma piemontese, pecorino toscano, and blue gorgonzola, along with many more.
You could easily make a whole meal out of just the meat and cheese selection here, and I assure you I will, but for my first visit I wanted to make sure we had a little bit of everything, which meant ordering all the carbs we could find on the menu.
Never fear, there are still plenty of items on the menu that don’t have carbs for you to enjoy, including several hearty salads and seasonal roasted-vegetable side dishes like Brussels sprouts, carrots, beets, and broccoli. For entrées there are a 16-oz. prime KC Strip and a roasted chicken dish. We ordered none of those likely delicious dishes on our first visit, i.e., see carb-lovers mention above.
While checking out the menu, we started with a snack of tasty fried green olives served with an aioli that just gilded the lily, along with a round of cocktails that I highly recommend (Amalfi Spritz made with vodka, limoncello, and prosecco for me and a Porch Light made with rum, cardoon amaro, and fig for him).
Next, the house salad was just as advertised on the menu, “an obligatory, delicious Italian-American restaurant-style salad.” The prosciutto and burrata were more inspiring, with slices of fresh peaches perched on top of thin slices of ham with a generous sphere of creamy burrata cheese in the middle. The fruit is the key, as it provides something sweet to wrap the ham around before topping it with a silky piece of fresh burrata cheese, creating the perfect bite.
Our order of hearth-baked focaccia came next, and it had a secret. It came to the table filled with a gooey melted cheese in the middle and ate like a fluffy grilled cheese sandwich served with a dipping sauce made of vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, and roasted garlic. All focaccia should be so full of surprises and cheese pulls.
There are two kinds of pizza on the menu at Bacaro Primo. A regular round, thinner crust pizza made with tomato sauce and the “pinsa” or Roman-style pizza, which has an oblong shape and thicker crust. We ordered the pinsa, where the toppings change daily, and were treated to Italian ham and pesto with both mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. The pizza came to the table cut into six pieces and it was like eating a flatbread with a chewier crust.
The savory portion of our meal ended with the entrée-size fritto misto di mare, which came with nice-sized shrimp, tender calamari rings, thin lemon slices, and zucchini all breaded and fried and served with a red chili aioli for dipping. It’s the perfect dish for a casual shared plate with friends.
Too full to eat dessert there, I ordered it to go. But somehow by the time we got home, we were ready for something sweet. Standing in our kitchen with spoons in hand, we dipped into the salted and malted chocolate budino, which was topped with both hazelnut crumb and Amarena cherries, and a slice of limoncello cake filled with mascarpone cheese that was more savory than sweet and served with a side of blackberry caramel. Neither the toppings nor caramel sauce were needed for either dessert, they just muddied the clean flavors of each.
Just as with Earl’s Premier, Bacaro Primo is a great example of a small, stylish everyday spot located in a busy neighborhood that offers friendly service and delicious dishes that don’t break the bank. I think Schulte and Dannehl are onto something with this restaurant model. Call it “premier” or “primo,” all I know is that I am looking forward to seeing many more “firsts” from this restaurant dream team. bacaroprimo.com