In Italian La Casa means “the house” so when a local restaurant owner only had 200 square feet to work with he made an adjustment.
“La Casetta means the small house, so using la casa seemed pompous to the size of the place,” said owner Joey Richard.
La Casetta is the only Italian restaurant in Bridgewater and the area, so people looking for authentic Italian food don’t have to drive into the city.
Richard, who moved from Montreal 4 years ago, says he will be staying away from outside influences and only be using authentic ingredients found in Italian cooking.
“All the recipes are originally from Italy so all the ingredients are top quality and exactly what they would be using in Italy,” he said.
Those ingredients include many staples in Italian cookery-tomatoes, cream, butter, pancetta and fresh pasta.
The restaurant has become known for making its own fresh pasta and sauces, but when the pandemic hit he ran into problems with flour supplies and had to put the pasta on hold.
“Now that it’s going to be more accessible I’m going to start doing noodles and if possible I want to sell noodles to other restaurants.”
La Casetta will also be teaming up with Heart and Soil Farm, who grow a variety of fresh vegetables and herbs, and Julien’s Bakery who bake fresh breads and pastries, to run a fresh Italian market.
Richard says eating local is the right thing to do during the pandemic.
“If we all go local then we aren’t going to miss anything. Let’s say we were depending on getting noodles from Italy, well we wouldn’t get them,” he said.
“That’s why eating local is so important because you know what to expect. You know where it grows, you know the people and being close to the real thing makes it so much better.”
Even though they will be moving to a new 1,200 square foot location at 724 King Street in the next couple of months, the name will stay as it is.
You can check out the mouth-watering selections available here.
