Sagra 400 Highland Ave. Somerville, MA 02144 Phone: 617-625-4200 | Text listing to mobile T Stop: Davis Square Parking Style: Street Price Range: : $$$ — Expensive Cuisine(s): Italian User Reviews | Write a review

Like many Italian restaurants—in both Boston and Italy itself—Sagra is at its finest with pastas but breaks its stride with main courses. I found chef Robert DeSimone most persuasive with simple, vibrantly fresh tomato sauce and creamy, luscious ricotta, served along with sweet small tomatoes—mainstays that make Italian life worth living. The ricotta comes herbed in a discreet pool of fruity olive oil as a giveaway with bread, and in a wonderful lemony filling for ravioli ($12). Even if the pasta for the ravioli is too thick for my taste, the filling manages to be zingy without a trace of the lemon rind’s bitterness. And the eggplant involtini ($8), the best first course, has the elements of Sagra’s strong suits: herbed ricotta, fresh tomato sauce, and a thin coating of melted scamorza cheese as a bonus. It’s here that DeSimone demonstrates the genius of Italian cuisine, with its infinite variations on a few ingredients. Though these dishes are made of the same components, each feels and tastes utterly different.