My wife's daughter recently celebrated a significant birthday and we wanted to get the family together to celebrate. Since her daughter lives in North Liberty, my wife and I drove over to meet her daughter, her daughter's son and daughter, and my wife's son for dinner. Their choice that evening was an Italian pizza restaurant I've been to before, but hadn't written about - Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli. We got there just as they opened up at 5 p.m. on a recent Saturday evening.
Gennaro Rusciano was born and raised in Naples, Italy. You could say that working in kitchens was in his blood - he used to tell people he was born under a wood-fired oven. His grandparents and uncles ran restaurants and bakeries in Naples. Gennaro learned how to make food in a wood-fired oven from them making his first pizza at the age of 8. As a young adult, his goal in life was to immigrate to the United States and run his own restaurant there. But the process to move to the U.S. was an arduous task, at best. It took a chance encounter with an American tourist to set those wheels in motion for Rusciano to move to the U.S.
Carol Gorney was a native of the Quad Cities and a licensed physician's assistant in Iowa City. During a trip to Italy in 2016, she was introduced to Gennaro Rusciano by a fellow tourist on the trip who happened to be Rusciano's mother's cousin. Rusciano told Gorney that his dream was to move to America and open his own restaurant. At first Gorney and Rusciano were sort of joking about it, but the more they talked, the more they realized they could get it to work out.
To be eligible for a visa, Rusciano had to present United States immigration officials with a solid business plan on opening and working in a restaurant. Less than two months after they met, and with Gorney as a partner, Rusciano was able to get a work visa that allowed him and his family to move to the states in March of 2016. It took some time for Rusciano and Gorney to get everything together and in June 2017 they signed a lease in a space in a strip mall on North Liberty's north side of town. In November of 2017, Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli opened to the public. Helping Rusciano out with the day-to-day operations was Gorney's son Taylor who stepped in as the restaurant's manager.
Pictured right - Gennaro Rusciano. Photo courtesy Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli Facebook page.
And the authentic taste of Naples is far from just word salad. The large brick oven Rusciano's uses to cook pizzas and breads was made in Naples and imported over in 2017. He gets his flour and olive oil sent over from Italy. San Marzano tomatoes and Calabrian peppers are also imported from his home country as are some of the wines he offers at the restaurant. Craft beers from Iowa breweries are available at Rusciano's, local baker Adam Kopfman from Tip Top Cakes in Iowa City made the desserts exclusively for Rusciano's. Other ingredients Rusciano uses are locally sourced from farms and other food outlets.
We had six people in our party for dinner that evening and my wife and I showed up early, just after 5 p.m. to make sure they had the reservation for our party correct. They had a table in the corner in the front of the restaurant for us all ready to go. The restaurant space, itself, was what I would call modern industrial with an open ceiling with ductwork and light fixtures hanging above the dining area. The large brick oven that was imported from Naples sits in the back corner behind the counter.
Along the other side wall was more artwork - photos and paintings of Naples. A large wood carving of the silouette of Mount Vesuvius with neon lighting behind the carving giving it a bit of a red hue on the outline. Booths were along the wall underneath the pictures and the wood carving.
My wife's showed up not too long after we got into Rusciano's, then her daughter and her daughter's son and daughter showed up about 5:20. A young lady by the name of Sierra was our server that evening and after she dropped off menus for everyone, she took drink orders. My wife ordered a glass of the house chianti - a Castello di Querceto from the Florence region in Italy, while I got a Pseudo Sue pale ale from the Toppling Goliath brewery in Decorah, IA.
Rusciano's menu has a lot more to offer than just pizza. They offer some authentic Napoli street bites as part of their appetizer menu including balls of risotto and ground Italian sausage; mini-pizza dough balls topped with marinara and fresh mozzarella; and bucatini pasta balls with sausage, San Marzano tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. They had a caprese salad and creamy burrata, as well as focaccia bread and bruschetta. We started out getting a charcuterie board with a selection of cured meats and cheese. My wife also wanted to get the olive appetizer with a mixture of black and green olives on the plate.
My wife and her daughter decided to get a couple things to share. They started out with a salsaccia and cheese pizza with San Marzano pizza sauce, real mozzarella cheese and fresh basil leaves on top. Rusciano's grinds all their sausage in house. The pizza had puffy edges from the OO flour that is imported from Italy.
The granddaughter and grandson both got their own personal pizzas. The grandson got a pepperoni pizza while the granddaughter - who was seated next to me - got her own personal cheese pizza. I kept acting like I was going to steal a piece of her pizza while she was eating and she kept smacking my hand away. "You should have got your own," she said in her own sassy way.
My wife and her daughter also got pasta - it was truly a family-style atmosphere at our table as there was sharing going on. They got the rigatoni pasta with a mixture of San Marzano marinara and an alfredo sauce. I guess you could call it a creamy marinara, but my stepdaughter had it at Rusciano's before and my wife thought it was awesome in flavor.
My stepson got the fettuccine alfredo with shrimp. Two large pieces of toasted bread came with the fettuccine alfredo. It wasn't that large of a portion, but he was helping eat off his mom's and sister's pizza and pasta.
I had gotten a pizza on my previous visit to Rusciano's before COVID hit, and I contemplated getting a calzone - the Zi Totonno with sausage and Genoa salami stuffed inside with San Marzano sauce, mozzarella and pecorino romano cheese. But this time I went with the fettuccine in a hearty bolognese sauce. Rusciano's uses slow-cooked braised beef along with San Marzano tomatoes in their bolognese sauce. If you're a regular Road Tips reader and have been paying attention over the past few months, I've really been on a bolognese with pasta kick as of late. I've made my own at home with ground beef, ground pork, San Marzano tomatoes, some cream, and Italian herbs. The bolognese at Rusciano's was surprisingly good. As in very good. I would have put it up against some of the bolognese and pasta dishes I've had a some nice Italian restaurants over the past year.
Since it was a significant birthday for my wife's daughter, we decided to all get something from Rusicano's dessert menu. They had tiramisu and that's what my wife ordered for her daughter and her. It was a big fluffy piece of tiramisu with ladyfingers encased in the spongy mascarpone. Espresso beans with powered chocolate covered the piece of tiramisu. I had a bite and it was excellent.
My choice was the limoncello cheese cake that was topped with a strawberry drizzle. Compared to the tiramisu, this was pretty "meh!" It didn't have much of a lemon flavor to it, at least not enough to put a citrus "zing" on my tongue.
My stepson got a couple cannoli. He gave me half of one and it was also very good. It was loaded with a batch of sweet ricotta cheese and sprinkled with a generous portion of powered sugar. It was delicious.
The grandkids went with the Nutella pizza. I about fainted when I saw it because it was basically a pizza topped with powdered sugar, Nutella, slices of strawberries and dollops of whipped cream. I said, "There is no way these little t**ds are going to be able to eat this." Guess what? They DID!! (I think they had some help along the way.) Thinking about how much sugar that dessert pizza had to have, I told my stepdaughter, "I'm glad they're going home with you and not with us!"
Gennaro Rusciano came over to check in on us as we were enjoying the desserts. I mentioned that it would have been nice to get an affogato as a dessert choice. He said he didn't have espresso there, but there was a coffee shop next door. "I've got some gelato," he said as it got me thinking. Unfortunately, the coffee shop closed down at 5 p.m. Oh, well.
Rusciano's is my stepdaughter's favorite place to get food in North Liberty and it was no wonder that we ended up there for her birthday dinner. I found that it's much more than just a pizza restaurant as the fettuccine bolognese I had there was outstanding. About the only thing I can think of that wasn't very good to excellent was the limoncello cheese cake that was pretty bland to me. Everyone was more than happy with what they got. And I have to give a shoutout to Sierra who was on top of every request and was quick to respond. Rusciano's really is an authentic taste of old Naples.
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