Martin’s Offers Italian Cuisine With Flair

Located at 133 Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6), Martin’s Fine Italian Cuisine has been under the ownership of Martimiano Garcia since February 2008.

While Martin’s is the first restaurant venture for Mr Garcia, he brings 25 years of experience in Italian cooking to his business, having worked under skilled chefs in the Little Italy section of New York City and having served as sous chef and head chef for several years at a popular restaurant in Waterbury.

“I learned the hard way,” said Mr Garcia, “working my way up from the bottom in restaurants. Food is my passion, though, and I love to cook.”

Mr Garcia has created many of the dishes on the menu, taking a little from the southern Italian style and a little from the northern Italian style of cooking with a dash of his own innovative style to set them off. Mr Garcia, who does all of the cooking, makes the marinara sauce on premises and other sauces are made strictly to order.

The low, one-story building that houses Martin’s sports a cupola topped with a rooster weathervane and is set back just slightly from the road with plenty of parking. Entering the small foyer, patrons come into the main dining room, a cozy, natural pine-paneled room with two centrally located tables flanked by two booths on either side of the room. White tablecloths and cloth napkins top each table, and deep burgundy blinds and low lighting add an air of elegance to the warm surroundings. The focal point of the room is a fieldstone fireplace, where bottles of the featured California and Italian wines perch on top of a carved wooden mantel.

Additional seating for another dozen clients at booths is found in the adjacent bar, where six burgundy leather chairs belly up to the full-service bar, as well.

Clients can enjoy a full menu in either the bar or the main dining area. The appetizer menu includes classic Italian cuisine offerings such as garlic bread and clams casino, but also features Mr Garcia’s flair for the nouvelle with portabella al forno, a roasted portabella mushroom topped with goat cheese over house-roasted peppers; and hot peppers, potatoes, and sausage, a spicy sauté to kick off the meal. He is proud of the fried calamari served with his own marinara sauce recipe. “Clients say it is outstanding,” said Mr Garcia.

Salads are available with blackened chicken or char-grilled shrimp to turn the four color salad or the field greens salad into a complete meal.

Entrees include not only pasta and seafood dishes, but chicken, veal, and steak, as well. Fettuccine with lamb ragu, chicken alla Milanese, wild scallops and shrimp scampi over linguini, and veal cardinale, in which veal is sautéed with prosciutto, sun-dried tomatoes, shiitake mushrooms, and peas in a white wine sauce are but a few of the items available for dinner. Pan-seared Atlantic salmon or char-grilled salmon, and Martin’s pan-seared twin pork chops or Bistecca Fiorentina steak are other popular entrees, said Mr Garcia.

He takes great pride in the food he turns out from the kitchen, even taking care with the children’s menu that young diners have more to choose from than the usual french fries and macaroni. A simple spaghetti with marinara is on the kids’ menu, but penne with butter and goat cheese or fettuccine Bolognese give kids something new to sink their teeth into while their parents are enjoying a fine meal. “The pasta and goat cheese is mild and creamy, and the kids are loving it,” Mr Garcia said.

French onion soup and a daily soup special and several side dishes are always available to round out the meal.

Prices for entrees range from $11.95 for pasta with marinara sauce to $20.95 for the salmon. All entrees include a house salad and bread and butter.

A prix fixe three-course dinner is also offered at Martin’s, with an array of entrees that changes weekly. Priced from $13.95 to $18.95, the prix fixe dinner includes a glass of the house red or white wine, a salad, entrée, and ice cream for dessert.

The restaurant also features a special for birthday celebrants. With identification, on the actual day of the birthday, patrons receive an entrée for free.

Mr Garcia is happy to tailor anything on the menu to a client’s request, and special diets can be accommodated so long as the ingredients are on premises.

Martin’s Fine Italian Cuisine is open only for dinners, but the restaurant is available for private parties during the daytime hours.

“I’m hoping more Newtown residents will discover Martin’s,” said Mr Garcia. “I have a regular clientele now, but I’m always happy to see new faces.”

Martin’s Fine Italian Cuisine is located at 133 Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6). It is open from 5 to 9 pm, Sunday through Thursday; 5 to 10 pm on Friday and Saturday. Lunch is not served. For takeout or to fax an order, call 364-9984.