By Frank Sabatini Jr. 
What started out as a corner lot Italian deli more than 25 years ago in the quaint heart of North Park is today a beacon for myriad pasta dishes, bubbling pizzas and sandwiches made with coveted Dietz & Watson cold cuts. Mazara Trattoria has since expanded, greeting customers with a retail section stocked solidly with beer and wine and a deli case displaying Italian bakery goods that hint of amaretto and hazelnuts in their making.
An adjoining double dining room starts off warmly. The larger half is replete with a vivid wall fresco, wine bottles on the tabletops and a couple of tables perched cozily on raised platforms along the front windows. The other side is less adorned and appears like a work in progress with only a few scattered tables.
Owner Sam Mattia shows off his love of Italian food in a menu listing copious dishes of traditional ilk – veal cannelloni, chicken cacciatore, lasagna and the like. Among them are a few specialty inventions that include seafood lasagna and hearty jambalaya that Mattia discovered works well when splayed over pasta. As for the pizzas, there are more than 24 options, each of them constructed with fresh dough and whole-milk mozzarella when cheese is involved. Order for a large group and the kitchen wows with giant pies measuring 28 inches.
Across the menu, single portions effectively serve two mouths. Beginning with Mazara’s “gourmet salad,” for instance, the two of us barely polished it off. The colorful medley featured cherry-red roasted peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, crisp greens and thinly sliced Provolone cheese, a veritable antipasto of impressive size sans the meat. The house vinaigrette was also a winner, tasting both sweet and tangy with herby undertones.
Then came a tomato-based play on shrimp scampi boasting a wellspring of the crustaceans that are simmered with artichokes and discernible measures of white wine. The appetizer demands an early delivery of garlic bread (included with entrees) for mopping up the deep, savory puddle of “juice” left behind.
Eggplant Parmigiana is listed under the menu’s pasta section because it’s draped over a generous mound of spaghetti. Therein lies the red sauce. On top you see only the delicately fried eggplant slices peeking out from a gleaming white sheet of melted mozzarella. It’s a novel presentation that nonetheless gives you all the classic ingredients stacked onto a single plate.
We also ordered “Penne Arrabbiate” made traditionally with spicy tomato sauce. This version tones down the heat and incorporates tender strips of grilled chicken breast. Even after putting a reasonable dent into the dish, I came away with a pound of leftovers that were consumed the next day with gusto. As for the a la carte pair of meatballs we ordered alongside, they were smooth to the bite and consumed wholly onsite.
Looming over our feast was a 14-inch pizza topped with mushrooms and fennel-spiked sausage. Sporting a well-risen crust of medium thickness, it reminded me of the substantial pies I grew up with in the Northeast before thinner dough came into vogue. Only in Italian kitchens such as this, which have become landmarks in their neighborhoods, do we find these precious holdouts.
Mazara’s wine list extends to nearly 50 different labels, most of them available by the glass. If you see something in the front retail section that strikes your fancy, the staff will gladly open it to fill your stemware. We chose from the list, a California cabernet by Camelot that was bigger in tannins than fruit, more of a food wine that paired particularly well to tomato sauce.
Dessert was out of the question after such gluttony. Our loss, considering we’d have to trek otherwise to Little Italy for finding fresh cannoli and pretty cookies suited for an Italian holiday. But there’s always a next time in which pasta and pizza will call.
Mazara Trattoria
2302 30th St. (North Park)
619-284-2050
Prices: Pizzas, $11.95 to $35.95 (for giant 28-inchers); sandwiches, $6.79 to $9.09; pastas and other entrees, $11.95 to $19.99
