I hate places like Corto: once you eat there, you do not see other restaurants the same way and keep comparing them to it. Because, yes, this is the way I felt after going for brunch at Corto in Jersey City Heights and I am still thinking about the experience and the meal. As you enter, you definitely feel that this place is not your average Italian restaurant: rustic, cozy, welcoming, with the open kitchen in the back where you can see the magic happen, and a patio, that contributes to a very relaxing time. The menu represents well the name of the restaurant, Corto meaning short in Italian. There are three main sections and they recommend to order a dish from each: appetizers, pasta and main. They do not have a brunch menu, so do not expect a classic brunch: it is one menu for brunch and dinner with seasonal dishes that were presented to us in a way that made us want to try everything, highlighting the creativity of the chef, like the creste di gallo ($26), a short pasta with ruffled edges that literally translates to “rooster’s crest”. Made with Jersey corn, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, Urfa (a smoky and mildly spicy Turkish pepper), brown butter and grana padano, it was their rendering of a summer in New Jersey on a plate. I admit that I am always wary about pasta with vegetables, besides eggplant, preferring seafood or meat ragout, but this blew me away. The homemade pasta was superb, perfectly cooked al dente, and each ingredient complemented each other, without being dominant, and it had the perfect amount of brown butter and grana padano to elevate the dish. A must have! I should mention that they make all their pasta. We also got their cheese and salumi plate ($34), that was not your average plate, where sometimes you get basic deli cheeses. First of all, the plate looked very appetizing, with honeycomb, chickpeas, olives and crackers, accompanying the meat and cheeses. The latter were: Birchrun blue from Birchrun Hills Farm, Lanchego that is a manchego from Lancaster, PA, and a smoked gouda. The meats were from Salumeria Biellese in Hackensack. There was: Finocchiona, a type of salami from Florence, Italy, porcini sopressata and napolitana, another type of salami. There was lots of both for sure. We also got their ricotta & honey toast ($15) that seems to be popular there and was quite good, the filone bread being soft with a nice crust, topped with ricotta that was covered with wildflower honey, sea salt, pink peppercorn and olive oil. This was delicious and our waitress told us that we could use the leftovers for breakfast and eat it with an egg on top. We finished with their citrus olive oil cake ($12), that was superb, being moist with hints if citrus that are not overpowering. As it is a BYOB restaurant, they have coffee and sodas, so we went for an Italian lemonade ($4).

Overall, this was a fantastic meal, the kind that makes you want a place like that around the corner, but that is also going to be in your mind every time you eat Italian food. I high recommend Corto!

Enjoy (I really did)!

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Corto - 507 Palisade Ave, Jersey City, NJ 07307

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