Vendetta

I was a bit sad when an Irish pub that had occupied a strategic space in Patio Bellavista closed its doors permanently. This was something puzzling to me since this bar was and had been one of the busiest in the city for close to a decade and was the only place in town where you could find a Guinness stout.

Vendetta, in this location in Bellavista, is now the fourth location in Santiago for this trendy, upscale Italian trattoria. The décor is impressive. The restaurant occupies two stories, including a large terrace overlooking the center courtyard of Patio Bellavista on both floors.

The creative menu at Vendetta is ultra-simple and well-executed. That menu includes a lengthy list of appetizers (antipasto), several pizza choices, a few salads, a small variety of pasta dishes, and a very short list of steaks and breaded veal or chicken cutlets (milanesas and supremas).

Yeah … you can get a traditional Margherita pizza that is an admirable attempt at an authentic Neapolitan pizza. But Vendetta ups the ante. The pizza’s got a flavorful elastic dough, perfectly blistered and charred along the edges, but the ingredients piled on top take some of the pizza pies on this menu to a higher level.

I ordered the Prosciutto pizza on recent visit. The mozzarella was creamy and tasty, the pomodoro sauce was the perfect balance of sweet and tart and the prosciutto was the real-deal. But the game-changer was the creative addition of the figs, blue cheese, and arugula crowning this beautiful pizza, and an artfully placed drizzle of a balsamic reduction.

This wasn’t authentic. It was better than authentic.

Although we haven’t visited the other locations in Las Condes (near Parque Arauco), La Reina, and La Florida, we’re confident that the décor, food and service are similar in all locations.

That’s good news for the residents in these neighborhoods who now have a local pizzeria that rivals the quality and value of the highly popular Tiramisu on Isidora in La Condes and the other recent addition to the Santiago’s trendy casual dining scene, Brunapoli, in Vitacura.