Cotto Enoteca Pizzeria is a hidden gem in North Burnaby. It is a modern Italian restaurant, focusing on authentic VPN certified Neapolitan pizza and updated Italian cuisine. Plus it has a pretty decent heated patio (though is a bit noisy with all the traffic, they do a good job shielding it with trees and etc.) and excellent customer service! They’re also super active on social media so if you have menu or reservation questions, tweet them!
Cotto’s Neapolitan pizza is ranked #447 in the world by Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana . #449 might seem low..but this INCLUDES restaurants in Italy and New York. So…actually it’s not too shabby!
We arrived on a Tuesday, which means it’s 12.00 pasta night at Cotto. Woho! They have a variety of specials including $12 pizza Mondays! You can check them all out here.
We ordered the Burrata as an appetizer for $12. It is soft cow milk cheese, roasted pepper caponata, red wine syrup and rosemary forno bread. LOVED the burrata, the cheese was soft and buttery and there was a generous portion of salad. I could have easily had this as a main. I liked the red wine syrup but I think I would have preferred a balsamic to go with the cheese, salad and bead. A tart balsamic would have cut through the richness of the cheese better. The bread was fantastically flavourful and I could defiantly taste the rosemary on it, and maybe a hint of cheese too? The bread was warm, soft and chewy, which as I say on Two Girls. One Blog., worth the cheat! It is the same dough they use for their pizza, which is really yummy (helloo….ranked #447 remember?!).
I went for a visit to Cotto awhile back and had the Pizza Carbonara $15 and it was FANTASTIC. The pizza had fonduta, parmigiano reggiano, pecorino romano, guanciale, roasted garlic and a 63 degree egg! Yum. Definitely a must try if you go.
For the main course, my husband chose the Cannelloni Carne for $12 (normally $15). It was delightful. The meat filling was well seasoned and the pasta was al dente. The carne filling was: Pomodoro, beef, spinach, mozzarella, ricotta cheese. Really yummy in general and they don’t skimp on the meat and cheese!
I was trying to be healthy (…I know I am at a Italian Restaurant….don’t look at me like that) and chose the Cotto Salad. It was a good salad and had mixed greens, honey balsamic vinaigrette, avocado, hard cooked egg, crispy prosciutto, gorgonzola cheese, tomato, chicken and fennel. LOVED the crispy prosciutto and gorgonzola cheese! But come on, who doesn’t love cheese? Anyways..the pasta was better and I had a lot of it. Oops. Sorry Ryan!
All in all, Cotto is a great choice for Italian food if you are in the Burnaby area. Even though portion wise it’s smaller than say Anton’s (about a 5 min drive away) or other cheap Italian place , it serves up better food, has awesome atmosphere and kick ass customer service. I am a huge quality over quantity person, so I rather go to Cotto over Anton’s any day! Next time you’re in Burnaby, give Cotto a shot and tweet me your thoughts at @phoelam!
