A few years ago, we had a pair of favorite restauarants in Manchester, Republic Café and Campo Enoteca, that were a favorite light dinners when we were in the area, with Campo serving up French-inspired food, and the latter serving Italian food. But the pair didn’t survive the pandemic intact, at first, they combined operations as “Republic of Campo” (and you can still see the “Republic” on Campo’s sign today), but that didn’t last, and in 2022 Republic Café closed permanently (the name lives on in the only lightly-related Republic Brewing a mile away) and Campo Enoteca was sold to new owners. However, the new owners of Campo Enoteca have been successful at keeping the place operating, so I figured it was worth dropping in and doing one of our Offbeat Eats “Health Check” re-visits.
Despite the change in the ownership, stepping through the door of Campo Enoteca shows that very little has changed: it still has the same basic bar and high-top table configuration from before, with a specials menu chalkboard with the daily specials. And the place still has the same overall vibe; on a Saturday night the place was busy but not crowded, so they’ve still got a pretty established clientele. So it’s nice to see that the place appears to be doing well.
Menu-wise, the basic menu seems pretty similar to our previous visit; the menu is primarily based around a series of smaller antipasti dishes like polpetti and arancini, pasta courses like a classic carbonara or a primavera, and a reasonable selection of larger Italian classics like picatta or branzino. Sitting at our high-top towards the back of the restaurant, we got a good view of the waitstaff taking all the dishes out to the tables, and a few items really stood out as being both popular and delicious-looking, including the picatta and the daily special pasta, a pork and fennel rigatoni. While I was quite tempted by the picatta, both Carol and I ended up settling on the rigatoni special, and getting a shared starter of polpetti.
The polpetti emerged quickly from the kitchen, a set of Kellie Brook Farm pork and Little Brook Farm beef meatballs, served up in a in a mushroom cream sauce. I rather enjoyed the polpetti when we previously reviewed the place, and they remain solid: a nice juicy interior with the flavorful meat from both area farms standing out, a nice sear, and a really nice, rich mushrooms and cream sauce that really had some bold, concentrated mushroom flavors. A great start to the meal, and glad to see they still have one of our favorite dishes on the menu.
Shortly our main course arrived, the daily special of a pork and fennel ragu with pomodoro and cream sauce, over rigatoni, finished with three cheese sprinkle and herbs. This was a solid dish; the pasta was a nicely house made, al dente rigatoni that was finished in the ragu, so it had the right overall texture an deep flavor. The ragu was a nice pork-fennel mix, much like a sweeter Italian sausage, with the slightly more herbal notes from having fennel bulb instead of the seed. Tied together with some cream and topped with some fresh grated cheese, and this was a solid main course.
A few weeks earlier, we had been at Homestead in Northampton, and I had almost gotten one of my favorite Italian desserts, Tiramisu, but ended up changing my mind and getting a quite-excellent budino instead. But here at Campo Enoteca, I couldn’t say no, and we ended up splitting a serving of tiramisu. This was a perfect version, pale, billowy mascarpone cream alternating with coffee-soaked ladyfingers, all nicely dusted with chocolate for a well-balanced and smooth dessert.
I was glad we got back to Campo Enoteca: after a few rocky years during the pandemic, they seem to have re-established themselves with new owners and a firm footing, serving up the same classic Italian main courses and pasta dishes we always enjoyed. I’ll have to come back a bit more often (although much of my business travel has migrated to Boston Logan, so I don’t have as many opportunities to grab dinner in Manchester on the way home).
