Capa Tosta

Angelo Ciotola brought his childhood growing up in Naples, Italy, and his love for family-style Italian cooking to Columbia Heights earlier this year. And when you’re here, you are indeed family. That’s mainly because his parents, Porzia Ciotola and Antonio Ciotola, are the restaurant’s chefs and bakers. “Mamma” makes all the pasta by hand, and she even came out of retirement to help the rest of the Ciotola family in the kitchen. The menu’s flavors hit on all the hallmarks of Italian-American cuisine—there’s eggplant and chicken parm, as well as housemade pasta and refreshing cocktails, like The Fiore, a take on a pisco sour with pomegranate, cardamom eggwhite, and lemon.