Coppa



The Houston restaurant & bar scene seems to ebb & flow, especially along the Washington Avenue corridor, so it peaked our interest when a local hit restaurant, Catalan, closed and in its space opened a new Italian restaurant named Coppa.

As you can see in the above picture, the outside space at Coppa is quite enticing to sit outside and sip wine; however, despite 80 some odds days without rain and being in the middle of a drought, Houston is currently under siege by swarms of Flood Water Mosquitoes, which have the capability to bite through fabric, thus rendering patios off-limits. 

The dining room of Coppa is an interesting cross between an ancient Italian villa, full of stone walls & chandlers, and a "Euro-Club," full of obnoxious pastel colors and eccentric music. 

Dining room asthetics aside, the service and food at Coppa was simply outstanding!  Giving credit where credit is due, Chef Brandi Key is the culinary rockstar behind the recent success of Coppa!

Brandi came to Coppa after a stint as the Head of Reserach & Development for the Pappas Restaurant Group, which owns a variety of ethnic-themed restaurants that each include Pappa in the name (Pappadeaux, Pappas BBQ, Pappacitos).  According to an article in the local paper, Brandi won the job based on her Pasta Carbonara, a peppery pasta with pork & egg.

We kicked off our meal with a pair of glasses of Pinot Noir & an order of crispy chick peas, and were pleasantly surprised with generous pours, a nice touch by a new restaurant trying to build a clientele!

The chick peas came out dusted with a heavy coating of a good quality paprika & were mixed with fried sage leaves.  The dish was only ok.  However, our other appetizer, the octopus carpaccio (yes, you read that right) more than made up for the chick peas.!

I personally really like the flavors of octopus, and typically only see it a Mexican seafood cocktail, so octopus carpaccio caught us both by surprise & left us wondering what it would look like.  We were presented with a razor thin piece of octopus covered with argula, chopped green olives & roasted red peppers, fingerling potatoes (that were almost as amazing as the octopus), and lightly dressed in a lemon-olive oil dressing. 

The dish was a home run, tender and balanced well with just a enough acid and salt.  I could have made a meal out of a bowl of argula topped with the octopus and dressing!



Liz went with the Capellini, angel hair pasta dressed with garlic olive oil, crushed tomato, & basil.  On the menu I'm betting the dish gets overlooked due to it's simplicity, but it was far and away the best dish of the night!  I've never had tomatoes, cooked tomatoes for that matter, at a restaurant, that tasted like they came out of a garden hours before they ended up in the dish! 

Hearing that the Head Chef won her spot based on her Pasta Carbonara, I had to try it.  I was served a dish of pasta topped with minced salami, black pepper, shredded Parmesan cheese, and egg yolk on top; on the side was a saucer of cream sauce.  The dish was a decedent delight!  Contrary to it's name, the dish was pretty mild, and the egg yolk really helped to emulsify all the flavors together, and somehow, unbeknown to me, the dish, complete with such rich ingredients, was not heavy!

The beauty about pasta is there almost always some to take home!  And with a to go bag in hand, we departed a restaruant that we'll be sure to head back to in the near future!