Just Cooking Rustic Italian

The ciabatta comes out of the kitchen, not off a delivery truck. So does the bacon, smoked in-house, and the meatballs, ground from pork, veal and beef before they meet a pot of sauce. Just Cooking Rustic Italian earns the verb in its name the unglamorous way — a scratch kitchen on King Street in Vineland that makes the building blocks most Italian menus buy in. Rustic here means built from components rather than dressed up: mussels steamed in white wine and salsa verde, beets roasted with goat cheese and a red-wine vinaigrette, calamari fried to order.

The dinner menu rewards a table that orders in sequence. Antipasti set the register: Polpo, roasted octopus with crispy pancetta, capers, red onion and a shallot vinaigrette; arancini bound with sundried tomato, mozzarella, parmigiano and a garlic cream sauce; calamari fritti with lemon mayo and salsa verde. The pasta is where the kitchen stretches. Ravioli Funghi e Tartufo arrives as ricotta and mushroom under a buttery wine sauce and truffled garlic bread crumbs; Linguine Frutti di Mare carries shrimp, scallops and mussels through white wine and garlic; Penne Salsiccia is built on Italian sausage, that house-smoked bacon and a spicy red-wine tomato sauce. The Linguine Bolognese takes the long way, stewing veal with white wine, parmigiano reggiano, butter and milk rather than reaching for ground beef.