Strada West

Strada West was built to be the restaurant Niagara Falls locals go to when they want nothing to do with the Falls. It sits on Lundy's Lane, inside the Mulberry Centre plaza, a few minutes and a whole world away from the Clifton Hill dining strip — a casual Italian-Canadian dining room aimed squarely at the people who live in the city rather than the people passing through it. The kitchen makes its own pasta, its own sauce, its own burger patties, and its own meatballs, and that is the first thing worth knowing about the place: this is a from-scratch kitchen wearing the clothes of a neighbourhood hangout.

The menu rewards a table that wants to eat well without making an occasion of it. The Crab Ravioli arrives in a lobster cream sauce that pulls the whole dish toward the polished end of the kitchen, and the Linguini Pescatore reads like a seafood inventory in a bowl — calamari, shrimp, clams, scallops, cod, and mussels in a fresh tomato sauce. Seafood Risotto runs the same roster over rice. The ricotta Gnocchi and the Spaghetti Carbonara, the latter finished with a poached egg, hold down the comfort lane, while Chicken Francesca leans on a garlic white wine butter sauce and capers. Starters track the same instinct toward generosity: Stuffed Mushrooms packed with crab, lobster, shrimp; an Antipasto of prosciutto, soppressata, salsiccia, and romano; lamb Spiedini off the skewer.