Etna Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria

We were at Etna Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria on a Saturday afternoon. There wasn’t much of a crowd, probably only around 5 tables were occupied. It was a pretty cosy place, not too big, and you could easily see the chef preparing to oven bake his pizzas. After we got seated, the waitress was quick to make some recommendations for the food.

Quattro formaggi

We ordered the Quattro formaggi, which was a four cheese pizza consisting of mozzarella, gorgonzola, parmesan, pecorino (from Sicily) and the Linguine al Granchio e Crema di Aragosta. It was a flat pasta with crab meat in a pink lobster sauce, one of the highly recommended pastas in Etna. The pizza was baked in a traditional Italian wood fired oven. The Quattro formaggi was a Pizza Bianche, a white pizza with a mozzarella cheese base. The pizza was served piping hot, but before we could dig in, the pasta arrived as well. The waiter suggested that we ate the pasta first as it wouldn’t taste that nice when it was cold. Well, he didn’t say that about the pizza though. So we started on the pasta first.

The chef was very generous with the serving of crab meat. Every single mouth we took was just packed with crab meat. The linguine was al dente, just the kind we liked. The pink lobster sauce was thick and savoury. Perhaps cause the taste of the crab meat was just overpowering, the lobster taste didn’t quite stand out. But still, the freshness, juiciness and sweetness of the crab was the highlight of the dish. It was essentially linguine and crab meat – as simple as that, yet the taste was really good.

And when we finally started on the pizza, it had turned slightly cold, which might have caused it to pale in comparison. It wasn’t bad, but neither was it fantastic. In fact, after a couple of slices, I got rather sick of it. Somehow, I had to add quite a bit of chili flakes to accentuate the taste of the pizza. The pasta was definitely a better choice.

Etna Lava Cake

We didn’t plan on having desserts, but I kept tempting C with the Etna Lava Cake – Molten chocolate cake served with vanilla ice cream. Well, though we were pretty full, there’s always our spare tummy for desserts! So C finally gave in and we ordered the lava cake. The serving was pretty small, but the cake was pretty good. The molten center was very thick and dense. It didn’t really flow out like liquid or lava. But you could still tell that it was molten. We kind of liked it.

Etna Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria
110 Upper East Coast Road