10347 Jasper Ave, Edmonton

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to go to Bar Bricco with Lequyen, Thomas, and my other cousin, Matthew. He was in town helping his brother move and just to spend a couple days. I wanted to take them to a few restaurants that they’d never been before, so we decided on Bar Bricco for some late night snacking after an early dinner.

It’s located right beside its sister restaurant. Corso 32 and Uccelino. They can be really easy to miss if you’re just walking by. I didn’t pay too much attention to parking, since I was able to just take the train there. There is always some meter parking up and down Jasper Avenue, and there are some on the adjacent streets. Bar Bricco does not take any reservations, and it can be tough to get in sometimes. Luckily, there was a table just clearing out when we came and we got seated after 5 or so minutes.

We went relatively late in the evening, and it was very dim in the restaurant, so I couldn’t take any good pictures. The menu focuses on many small dishes to share, meats, and cheeses. They also have quite an extensive wine menu but neither of my cousins are very into drinking so we didn’t opt to get any drinks.

We decided to go with both tasting plates of Salumi, and Formaggi because meat and cheese go so well together, and we also had the Carne Cruda Piemontese. In retrospect, I wish I had gotten a few more tapas and dishes, but we were way too full from both of the tasting plates. But, no regrets, they were both amazing!

For the salumi, there were imported cured meats from many different cities oversears, and a house-made porchetta. From the left and moving clockwise, we had the Mortadella, Black Truffle Salami,  Smoked Pancetta, Proscuitto Di Parma (aged 16 months), and house-made porchetta in the middle. All of these were really good and amazing. You can really taste fennel in the salami, but to be honest, my favourite was the house-made porchetta. This was, hands down, my favourite. It had so much flavour, and great texture. It was a little bit on the fattier side, but that’s one of the things that I liked about it. It also went great with the House-made Focaccia. Next time I come here, I could go with just a plate of their house-made porchetta, and a few other dishes.

For for Formaggi, (clockwise starting from the right), we had the Black Truffle Moliterno (Aged 18 Month), Pecorino Toscano, Parmigiano Reggiano, Taleggio, and ricotta cheese in the middle. I thought that all the cheeses were great. My favourite would have to be the ricotta cheese in the middle. I found that the parmiagiano was a really hard and dense cheese. It was a bit hard to cut into and eat. The black Truffle Moliterno had a really strong flavour, and went really well with the truffle and black pepper honey sauce to bring out the truffle flavour even more.

Overall, it’s a great plate to share! It goes really well with all the bread and you can combine it with some of the cured meats as well for an added bonus. We also had the pink peppercorn honey condiment, but I found that the Truffle and black pepper honey sauce went well with all of the cheeses, breads, and meat.

Lastly, we got the Carne cruda to share. It’s like a beef or steak tartare, that is finely chopped. The name suggests that the beef comes from Piedmontese cattle, which is a relatively rare breed of cattle. There’s very few farms in Canada that have this breed of cattle and few restaurants go out of their way to serve it. I’ve only had the chance to have it a few times. This was a really lightly seasoned dish with only very simple ingredients. It went really well with the arugula and bread. The Parmagiano Reggiano was not too overpowering and added a nice flavour to the overall bite.

Overall, I really enjoyed Bar Bricco! It has a nice atmosphere that’s really casual. I really like tapas, and share plates, because it makes everything an enjoyable experience. In retrospect, I wish I had gotten just one salumi and one formaggi, so that I could try more different kinds of their dishes! Not to say that both weren’t delicious, but they are giant plates of meat and cheese! Again, my favourite was the house-made porchetta. I really liked the Carne Cruda as well. Definitely give this place a try if you can!