Like most kids growing up in the suburbs, I came to appreciate Italian food by way of Chef Boyardee. Those initial doses of canned ravioli helped me develop a deep and enduring love of the Old Spaghetti Factory out in Taylorsville, which was often the site of our little league football post-season dinners. I was lucky enough to have two older brothers go LDS missions to Italy, and they brought back a few old country recipes that introduced me to the wonders of a good Bolognese sauce.
My recent visit to Mastra Italian Bakery Bistro woke up a lot of these memories. It's been a while since I've tried an Italian restaurant that continues to enhance my understanding of this beloved cuisine like this new American Fork restaurant.
I suppose my initial draw to Mastra came when I saw them boasting house-made focaccia on their social-media pages. Focaccia is a near-perfect food wherever it turns up, so any place that whips up their own loaves of crisp and chewy focaccia every day was quite tempting. After a quick perusal of their menu, I found a plethora of dishes that one doesn't often find at your average local Italian joint; the Lasagna al Pesto Genovese ($19.55) and the Papardelle Salsa di Noci ($17.25) were particularly intriguing.
Mastra occupies a cozy space within one of the many commercial strip malls in downtown American Fork. It manages to pull you into its Italian bistro and bakery concept—you'll forget all about that Del Taco across the lot once you're inside. It's hard for a place to nail the balance between bakery and bistro, but Mastra does so nicely. The fact that their pasta is made onsite helps, because nothing quite says bakery and bistro quite like homemade pasta.
While the temptation to jump into the main courses is definitely strong, I'd suggest starting out with some of their fresh focaccia. You've got a few varieties to choose from, and the normale ($4) is the purest of the group—just crisp, golden edges hiding a bed of pillowy dough that imparts a subtle flavor of olive oil. It comes to the table warm, and there are few joys in life that compare to biting into a freshly made slice of focaccia.
There's not harm in sticking with the normale, but if you want to get adventurous you can try the focaccia meditrina ($5.17) with cherry tomatoes baked into the dough, the focaccia cipolle ($5.17) with onions, or the focaccia alle olive ($5.17) that comes with olives baked in. There's really no wrong answer when it comes to their focaccia; just make sure you get one of these lovelies to kick off your meal.
I was also quite fond of their caprese burrata e rucola ($13.80) as a starter. On a hot summer day, the combination of fresh, cool tomatoes and a creamy dollop of burrata cheese lands quite nicely. Not only is this summery dish dynamite on its own, but it gives you plenty of stuff to scoop onto your focaccia—you ordered some, right? Good. They also have a caprese with buffalo mozzarella ($14.95) if you're after something a bit different. I was going to snag that, but they had run out of buffalo mozzarella by dinnertime. As this is a place that doesn't throw the word "artisan" around like wallpaper, some of their housemade ingredients do run out toward the end of the day.
The mains are gorgeous in that simple, woke-up-this-way kind of beauty. The Fettucine al Ragu Bolognese ($17.25) is a great example of this. On paper, it's simply homemade fettuccine noodles topped with a healthy dose of Bolognese ragu. What you might not know is that this particular Bolognese is made with four types of beef and pork, along with some imported Lambrusco wine. Considering all the Bolognese I've eaten in my life, it's rare to have this traditional meat sauce give me pause, but they've pulled it off at Mastra. My primary gripe with Bolognese is that it's often too salty, but their process at Mastra is balanced and delicious. Each bite melts in your mouth in a way that keeps you chasing the flavor with every subsequent bite until you're just looking at an empty plate.
For fans of pesto, the Fusilloni al Pesto Genovese ($18.40) is a great counterpart to the pesto lasagna I mentioned earlier. The homemade fusilloni pasta is the MVP of this dish; its al dente texture and frilly composition help scoop up all that lovely pesto so you're getting vibrant flavors with each bite. This comes sprinkled with some pecorino cheese and pine nuts, and it's a lovely illustration the simple deliciousness that makes Italian food so special. The lasagna, of course, is the main event at Mastra. Their Genovese lasagna is a local rarity, so I'd recommend that above all, but their Bolognese lasagna ($17.25) is a delight as well.
Every so often on the local food beat, I come across a restaurant that feels like they're on to something big, and I think I can apply that feeling to Mastra. With a keen sense of how to squeeze every last ounce of flavor from their rustic Italian dishes, I can see this place moving on to great things in the near future.