Deck on Mattie Sopranos Pizzeria - Denver Restaurant Review

One of the fun things about getting more into new restaurants and cooking is that it is rubbing off on my family members.  Coming into Denver, my folks came to pick me up prior to going to a Rockies' game.  Our usual game time approach is to head down near the stadium and go to a bar like Jackson's.  But this time, my dad decided to take some time and search out something different, a place that we have never gone to before.  He came up with Mattie Sopranos Pizzeria.

Mattie Sopranos is located out near DIA in a small strip mall type place.  It seems to be fairly new as Denver continues to expand out toward the airport.  It's a quant little Italian place that was pretty wide open.  There is a small bar, a small salad bar on the back wall, and plenty of seating.  When we walked in, there were not a lot of people.  Of course it was 5 o'clock on a Friday, so I didn't anticipate a lot of people out away from the city. 

We sat at a booth off to the side and ordered our drinks, and then started looking through the menu.  There were a lot of different options to work our way through.  I found a couple of things that looked interesting, but coudn't really narrow it down.  So, I waited until the waitress came back around and just asked her what she liked.  The first thing she asked was for me to narrow it down so I decided on pasta.  She said that it would probably be Chicken Marsala or the Pasta Alla Mattie.  Since, I'm not a huge mushrooom fan, I opted for the Pasta Alla Mattie; a linguinie with a cream sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts and sausage.  My dad went with a stromboli and my mom with a penne with a vodka sauce and chicken.  We also opted for the cheesy garlic bread as an appetizer.

When the garlic bread arrived a short time later we dove in (as you can see from the picture, someone was awful excited...).  The garlic bread was nice.  The bottom was crispy, the bread soft, but not overly mushy and the cheese was browned nicely on top.  It came with a simple marinera sauce that had some chunks of fresh tomatoes.  Not a bad way to start.  While we were still working on the garlic bread, enjoying our conversation, the entrees arrived.  It became pretty obvious that Mattie's doesn't skimp on portion size.  The small stromboli looked like a foot long sub.  And both plates were heaping with pasta.  The flavor was pretty good.  The sauce was mild and when you got a bite of the tomato and artichoke with it, it was a nice flavor.  The only negative was that there wasn't enough of the tomato, artichoke, and sausage to balance out the large portion of the pasta.  I ended up making my way through about half of the portion before I finally had to put my fork down.

At the end of the meal we decided to opt out of dessert and make our way to the game.  For a little neighborhood Italian, Mattie Sopranos wasn't bad.  I would say that there was nothing that really stood out, but there wasn't anything that really fell flat.  It was what I had come to expect from a local Italian joint (a little different than the local Italian I've found in Seattle).  All in all, I think it was a good step into the non-usual Denver cuisine.

Final Verdict - 2.75 Stars