It is a warm summer day in a quaint Italian village. The sun is beating down on cobblestone. You wander the streets, keeping your eyes peeled for an enticing storefront where good food and drink flows among good company. Then, you find a nook in the wall where you see patrons, practically shoulder-to-shoulder dining and laughing together over plates of fluffy bread and golden olive oil. Fortunately for the people of Calgary, this exact scenario (minus the destination) has become a reality thanks to D.O.P., a family-owned Italian restaurant located just West of Calgary’s vibrant Victoria Park. While far from the Italian countryside, D.O.P. has enriched this popular neighbourhood with the roots of authentic Italian cuisine.
Blink and you’ll miss it. D.O.P.’s modest entrance is hardly noticeable among the facades of shops, restaurants, and bars lining Calgary’s bustling 1st street. Gilded lettering on the front window which spells out D.O.P. is the best indicator that you have reached your destination.
As you walk up the stairway and into the narrow dining room, you may end up with the impression that you are walking into someone’s home. That feeling is exacerbated by the welcoming and friendly staff who rush to greet you at the door. If you have made a reservation – which is strongly recommended – you will be shown to either a table or a seat at the eccentrically decorated bar. While D.O.P.’s dining room is technically separated by tables, as the night progresses and the restaurant becomes fuller with giddy diners, barriers dissolve and strangers quickly become friends as conversation fills the narrow walls of the restaurant.
Community and family are the key notions that inspired D.O.P.’s founder Tony Migliarese when he took over the space. Marrying contemporary dining with the simplicity of Italian cuisine, Migliarese quickly established D.O.P. as one of the best places for Italian food in Calgary despite being cramped alongside the interminable lineup of restaurants in Victoria Park. Far from a superfluous addition, D.O.P. clearly has something to add to the food culture of our city, offering a handful of classic dishes made with the utmost care and attention to the art of Italian cooking.
Simplicity is the clearest way to describe the menu at D.O.P., curated especially to accentuate the quality of ingredients. Migliarese seems to be paying a great deal of homage to the classics – meatballs from a family recipe, fresh grilled bread, and a selection of freshly-made pasta dishes including cacio e pepe with truffle. The dishes are minimalist and effortlessly delicious. Take the white anchovies as an example – served whole, bathing in a pool of olive oil and accompanied by steamy, fluffy bread. Another must-try antipasti feature is the fresh-whipped ricotta, served (obviously) with more bread and olive oil.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the dishes at D.O.P. are made to be shared. Even the pasta, typically ordered and enjoyed by a single person, is brought to the table with the expectation that everyone will partake. So, prepare your forks for battle when it comes to deciding who gets that last agnolotti. Or you could just order some more.
The dishes are delivered as they are prepared, so there is always something exciting coming to the table. In addition to fostering the already prominent sense of community at D.O.P., this shareable format allows everybody to sample a great portion of the menu which only takes up about a page. Before the night is over, you’ll have enjoyed hand-made pasta, a veal chop the size of the dinner plate it comes on, and a copious, heart-stopping amount of extra-virgin olive oil sourced right from Italy.
