Via Perla offers delicious Italian fare in downtown Boulder

When I saw cacio e pepe on the menu at Via Perla, it was almost a foregone conclusion that I would order it. It immediately called to mind the meal I had on our last night in Rome on our Italian vacation in May 2016. Still, it was not an easy decision. There are a lot of tempting items on the menu of the restaurant.

We got a reservation at Via Perla on the recommendation of a friend of a friend. It's located at the edge of the Pearl Street Mall (hence the name 'Via Perla') in downtown Boulder. When we were there (7 p.m. on a Wednesday night in early March), the restaurant was busy but not overly crowded.

The ambiance is very comfortable. The warm interior lighting complements the wood, stone, and brick decor. The service is friendly and accommodating. Our server greeted us with a hearty 'buona sera' (though she later confessed that she's Hispanic and not Italian.)

Comfortable ambiance, good Italian food at Via Perla

As I noted at the beginning, the menu has a lot to offer. My wife and I decided to split three items. We started with the finoccio salad. This was thin-sliced fennel with orange and avocado on a bed of arugula and radicchio dressed with a Dijon and basil vinaigrette, shaved pecorino cheese and hazelnuts.

Next, I got the cacio e pepe, which means cheese and pepper. It's a simple dish. (Despite being enamored by the meal I had in Rome, I still haven't tried making it at home.) The version served at Via Perla is served with ricotta whey and olive oil, topped with pecorino cheese and cracked black pepper corns. I would have to say that it was not as rich as the Roman version, nor was it as peppery.

My wife ordered pesce bianco (white fish). It was flounder gently sauteed and topped with capers, sun-dried tomatoes, basil, pine nuts and lemon. The plan was to split our two dishes. But she wasn't particularly thrilled by the cacio e pepe, and while I thought her fish was good, I was happy to let her eat most of it while I enjoyed the pasta.

So overall, we thought the food at Via Perla was very good. But it wasn't a real knockout in terms of being impressive. As I've already noted, there were other items on the menu that I would have liked to try. For example:

• Under the Antipasti, they have a plate of roasted cauliflower that sounds excellent;
• They also have a cauliflower soup that sounds very interesting; 
• Other salads that sound good include zucchini crudo topped with mint and goat cheese and charred lemon vinaigrette and a Caprese salad that also sounded good.
• As an entree, Via Perla offers chicken marinated in Lambrusco wine. I would have liked to try that dish.
• The other entree that really appealed to me was brasato made with short ribs of beef. Traditionally, brasato is beef braised in barolo wine. That's what I had during our stay in Piedmont last May. I had two versions of brasato there, one good the other excellent. I would have liked to compare them to the brasato at Via Perla.

The wine list at Via Perla is truly impressive. They have an extensive selection of wine from every region of Italy and a wide range of prices from easily affordable to outrageously expensive. We enjoyed a bottle of Chianti classico that was very reasonable and very good. 

I felt that the prices at Via Perla are reasonable and provide good value for the meal. I'm not sure if I will be returning to Boulder any time soon. But Via Perla would definitely deserve a return visit.