Wheeling and dealing on a new car with a number of dealerships recently, I ended up buying a car from a place in Muscatine. We've had to go to Muscatine a couple three times over the period of buying the car and we decided to try some of the restaurants in town while we were there. One that we noticed and wanted to try was Francesca Vitale's on 2nd St. in downtown Muscatine. (see map)
The Vitale family is sort of the royalty of Italian food in Muscatine. Reno Vitale settled in Muscatine with his family in the early 80's and opened Salvatore Vitale's - now simply known as Salvatore's - in 1985. (Click here to see an entry on Salvatore's.) Reno's sons, Salvatore - known to the locals as Sam - and Claudio helped him out in the restaurant along with his daughter, Antonia. Antonia eventually married Giovanni (John) Sgro and they now run Antonella's in downtown Davenport. (Click here to see an entry on Antonella's.)
Somewhere along the way, Sam and Claudio Vitale had differences and they went their separate ways in recent years. Claudio continues to run the day-to-day operations at Salvatore's with patriarch Reno - fast approaching 80 years of age - checking in every day, while Sam and his wife, Francesca, (pictured right) opened their own Italian restaurant down the street from Salvatore's in th spring of 2012. Sam and Francesca are also co-owners with Michelle Roos in Piazza Bella, a catering/reception facility in Muscatine, and also own The Sicilian, a small pizza and sub shop in Muscatine.
We got into Francesca Vitale's around 7:30 one evening. (Francesca Vitale's doesn't have a web site, but they do have a Facebook page. Click on the link to go there.) The place is reminiscent of Salvatore's up the street with large wooden booths and four-seater tables in the center of the dining area. A small bar area was in the rear of the place with a roaring natural gas fireplace giving the dining area a homey feel.
We were greeted by our server for the evening, Jake, who dropped off a couple menus for us. He told us of a couple specials for the evening and took our drink order. I got a cold beer while Cindy went for a glass of the house chianti.
The menu at Francesca Vitale's is a mixture of Italian entrees, steaks, seafood and pizza. We were there for the pizza that evening, although some of the pasta dishes sounded pretty good. (Cindy was especially intrigued when she saw the Pasta al Salmone - sauteed salmon with bow tie pasta covered with a vodka cream sauce.) But we ended up ordering a medium (12") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.
But before we had the pizza, Cindy determined that she needed to have a salad. The Brenda White salad caught her eye. It's a large salad that was first concocted by a former worker at Salvatore's consisting of iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped green peppers, mushroom slices, chopped onions, sliced black olives, pepperoni slices, parmesan cheese, fresh shredded mozzarella, with a choice of salad dressing. Cindy wanted to share the salad and Jake was nice enough to provide two separate bowls for us. Both of us got the delicious garlic dressing that the Vitale family has been serving in their respective restaurants for years.
The greens were very fresh, loads of shredded mozzarella topped the greens with the chopped and sliced veggies. The mushrooms were especially fresh and the pepperoni slices had a good spicy and salty taste. Of course, the garlic dressing was the key to the whole salad. If you like garlic, you'd love the salad dressing at Francesca Vitale's (or at Salvatore's or at Antonella's). I can guarantee that after you eat the garlic dressing, no vampires will be within a quarter mile of you.
Jake brought the pizza out after we finished up the salads. The hand-tossed crust was thin, but not cracker thin. It had some consistency and held up well with the toppings. The sausage was the chunk sausage that I like so well on a pizza, and there were generous amounts of the same pepperoni that was on the Brenda White salad, and the same thing with the chopped fresh mushrooms. Cindy doesn't care much for mushrooms, but even she said that the mushrooms on the pizza were very good. The sweet tomato pizza sauce and the mozzarella were both fresh and delicious. The pizza easily passed my "Does it taste good with a beer?" test.
We finished up the pizza and Jake began to entice us with dessert. Cindy asked if their tiramisu was made in-house and he conceded that it was not. "But our cannoli's are," he countered. Against our better judgement we ordered up a cannoli to give it a try. And it was excellent - and OH! so rich! The sugar and vanilla infused ricotta cheese filling was excellent as was the flaky pastry shell surrounding the filling. Drizzled chocolate syrup topped the cannoli. But it was so damn rich. Given a good sized salad, a 12" pizza with three toppings, and finishing off the meal with a cannoli, it was a lot of food. But it was all so very good.
I don't know if you can go wrong with the pizza at either Salvatore's, Antonella's and Francesca Vitale's. However, we felt the pizza at Francesca Vitale's may have been the best of the three. It was an outstanding pizza and simply delicious. I would be remiss in commenting on Jake's service which was also very good. He and another server were the only ones on duty that evening and they were a tad overwhelmed at times. But his friendly and playful demeanor camouflaged any stress he may have been under. Our experience at Francesca Vitale's - the food, the ambiance and the service - was all wonderful. I would have no problem driving the 35 minutes from our house for another pizza at some point.
Update - My wife and I were in Muscatine toward the end of 2016 and we went by Francesca Vitale's and found that it was closed. There is a new place in Muscatine called Sal Vitale's Pizza that - I believe - is the off-shoot of Francesca Vitale's.
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