Review...

TASTE & TELL - Fine Italian, good prices at Ecco Trattoria in Weymouth

By CHRISTINE ORDWAY
The Patriot Ledger

Behind a humble storefront on Route 18 in Weymouth, Ecco Trattoria serves excellent and affordable northern Italian cuisine.

Italian restaurants are everywhere on the South Shore, making it difficult for one to stand apart from its competition. But Ecco Trattoria does just this by providing a variety of northern Italian specialties and serving them with the attention and hospitality usually found in more expensive restaurants.

Ecco Trattoria has comfortable seating at the front of the restaurant and a handsome bar in the back. Chef/owner Edgar DeLeon and his kitchen staff prepare your meal at an open grill, but without the intrusive noise that so often accompanies open kitchens.

The menu features a variety of appetizers ($5.99-$10.99), salads ($6.99-$8.99), homemade ravioli and pasta specialties ($8.99-$17.99), pizzas ($9.45-$10.99) and meat and seafood entrees ($17.99-$24.99).

At Ecco Trattoria, every Tuesday and Wednesday night is pasta night. A special menu lists about 10 traditional Italian specialties, served with your choice of house salad or Caesar salad for $10.95. It’s a terrific value and, seeing as we visited on a Tuesday evening, we took advantage of it.

Ecco Trattoria’s appetizer menu includes a number of seafood choices. After seeing plates of very fresh-looking oysters and clams on the half shell pass by our table, we could not resist ordering the clams casino ($7.99). We were served a plate of five broiled littleneck clams topped with bread crumbs seasoned with bacon, garlic, lemon and butter.

The clams were flavorful and not overcooked, as sometimes happens. My only suggestion would be to top the clams with a square of bacon before setting them under the broiler.

We tried both of the salads offered with our meals. My friend’s Caesar salad featured crisp romaine and a creamy homemade dressing. I ordered the house salad, which was mixed greens tossed with a tarragon vinaigrette. Both salads were superior to those usually included with a meal.

My friend was very pleased with her choice of veal parmigiana, served with angel-hair pasta and lightly dressed with a Pomodoro tomato sauce.

I chose the chicken cacciatore, served with linguine. Thin cutlets of chicken were lightly breaded and fried, and served with a complex tomato sauce that included sauteed peppers and onions. It was another good choice.

We ended the meal with the fresh fruit cup ($6.99) - beautifully presented fruit tossed with Grand Marnier, served over vanilla ice cream and topped with whipped cream. Not too heavy or sweet, it was the perfect end to a very good meal.

Ecco Trattoria 1167 Main St. (Route 18), Weymouth
781-335-5600

Price: Pasta starts at $8.99, entrees top out at $24.99

Hours: Lunch: Tues.-Fri. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dinner: Tues.-Sun. 4-10 p.m.

Parking: Ample parking

Credit cards: Major credit cards accepted

Handicapped access: Yes

The weekly restaurant review, ‘‘Taste & Tell,’’ is written after anonymous visits to area restaurants by Patriot Ledger food critics Christine Ordway, Mimi Claffey and Jen Wagner.

Copyright 2007 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Wednesday, May 02, 2007