At Risata Cucina, the Mains Steal the Show

“We’re ordering the pork chop,” my friend announced before I even sat down in the corner booth at Risata Cucina. “Our server said it’s the best thing on the menu.” Our server is known for pushing the pork chop. He told someone to get it on their anniversary dinner, even though they had just come in for pasta. He convinced a family of four to share it. Someone who didn’t plan to get an entree ordered it for the entire table, like a table pancake. While a lot of servers will tell you not to ask your server what to order, because servers don’t know what you like, good servers know how to guide you to the dishes that excel beyond taste preferences–and less deft servers can lead you astray.

I was skeptical. A lot of the restaurants that excel at pasta in the Twin Cities struggle with their mains. Risata Cucina, which opened in Robbinsdale in early March and is run by industry veterans Brendan Denne and Bryan Gooding, doesn’t have this problem.

Case in point: a swordfish picatta that is anything like what your Italian grandmother might make. This swordfish is dredged in a potato crust, fried, and served with a butter caper sauce so good I spooned up the last bits with the serving spoon and drank them. But what makes the dish is the whole herb salad. Parsley, mint, basil, and oregano are thrown atop the swordfish and give brightness to an otherwise creamy, acidic, and garlicky classic. It feels, forgive me for the pun, fresh.

Then there’s the chicken parmesan, which is bone-in, brined in buttermilk, coated with bread crumbs, blanketed in mozzarella, slathered in a “spicy” red sauce (it’s Minnesota medium), and sprinkled with oregano and basil. I’ve been consuming a lot of chicken parms lately and almost all of them wind up either burnt or soggy. This one remained crisp, even as I left it to sit in the sun while I devoured the pastas.

And, of course, there’s the porkchop. The meat itself is well-seasoned and the portion is massive. On that count alone, it’s worth ordering. But then it’s topped in a glistening thick layer of vincotto and bright red peperonata and dusted with a small handful of fresh oregano. It is visually stunning and of all the dishes I ate that night (of which there were many), this was the sauce I carefully chose to drag my bread through. At $26, it’s also a steal. Each bite was vivacious, with the spicy and smoky peperonata and the fruitiness of the vincotta not fighting for attention on the palate, but feeling like a cohesive whole. So many dishes at Risata Cucina feel this way. When you read the menu, you might wonder, “Is that… too many flavors?” Somehow, in Denne’s deft hands, it never is.

The pork chop was my first glimmer of many that this restaurant is run by industry vets. Both of Risata Cucina’s co-owners have significant history working in the industry. Denne worked as Executive Chef for Daniel del Prado across multiple concepts and served as Culinary Director at Travail Collective. Bryan Gooding, who says hospitality is in his blood, started working in a pizza shop at the age of 14 and has been in hospitality ever since. This pork chop is proof of their extensive experience. Denne has built a menu that is well-rounded enough to break the curse of subpar mains at spots with our best pasta, and Gooding has built a front-of-house team that knows how to sell those proteins to people hellbent on just ordering those pastas.

I’m not saying skip the pasta. I just want you to know that they aren’t the only strong dishes on the menu. There’s the rigatoni alla vodka with its just so spicy sauce for those who love classics. It won’t surprise you, but it will fill you with nostalgia, because it feels straight out of nonna’s kitchen.

On the other end of the spectrum, for those love creative fare, there’s the carrot agnolotti which is served atop just browned butter and then topped with shards of pistachio, big sprigs of dill, and a dusting fennel pollen. There’s a brightness in this dish that turned me, someone who usually feels that carrot should be reserved for fall, into a believer that yes, carrot is for summer. So much of that feeling is the use of herbs at Risata Cucina. Almost every dish comes garnished with fresh, whole herbs in generous portions.

There’s also the pasta dishes that are somewhere in the middle between nostalgic and creative, like a fusilli beef cheek ragu with large cuts of tender beef cheek flanked by slivers of garlic. The dish falls apart in your mouth, like you hope ribs do, and while beef cheek isn’t a standard ingredient in most ragus, this tastes just like you might expect a ragu to taste. That means that even your most picky friend can try a new-to-them ingredient, because it’s set inside a familiar concept. My favorite part of eating this particular pasta though was the way the housemade fusilli was imperfect, which let me make clear, I do not mean flawed. Handmade pasta often has slight variations piece to piece if you look closely enough, and here the corkscrews felt decidedly made by hand.

Yes, those more creative pastas on the menu are delicious and delightful, but how many of us can recall the last time we had really good standards at a restaurant? In the Twin Cities, there’s an incredible array of inventive pasta, ranging from OG Bar La Grassa to newcomers Liliana and Hendrix & Siena. What sets Risata Cucina apart, and what I personally hope you order, is the classics. Here, the team tries to give you the best version of ragu, pomodoro, or alla vodka you’ve ever had. This is, arguably, the harder route. Friends remarked long after my visits that those classic pastas were memorable. More than one went back without me (rude).

Apps and desserts are also worth ordering, though not at the expense of pastas and mains. The salmon bruschetta feels like an Italian take on a spicy salmon roll. The grilled mortadella and mozzarella spiedini is akin to a mortadella lollipop that tastes of green due to the salsa verde and large heaps of mint on the skewers. Most stuffed arancini have too much filling, not enough rice, but at Risata Cucina, it felt like someone fried up really good mushroom risotto. Then there’s the panzanella which was my first bite of summer–acid forward and sweet, it felt like the perfect entrance into summer produce.

While pastas and mains were flawless, desserts were a mixed bag. I had a tiramisu that was too sweet even for my friend who loves Sweet Martha’s Cookies. I ordered the chocolate crostata in hopes of the promise of the graham cracker crust listed on the menu, but it came in a pale shell that resembled an underbaked refrigerated Pillsbury crust. The crust was doughy and pale, letting down the well-salted chocolate filling and shaved honeycomb that had so much potential to be the perfect end to an excellent meal.

Thankfully, other desserts fared better, like a cannoli that was heavy on the orange and shattered when you bit into it. The best dessert on the menu is the panna cotta. The strawberry panna cotta tasted just like artisan strawberry ice cream from a small producer, just in refrigerated form instead of frozen form. It was a nice break from the “sameness” of most panna cottas, where they are often vanilla, caramel, or goat cheese. This one, like most of the rest of the menu, had personality.

With dessert, you should order from the extensive Amaro list. Yes, even you, sober friends. They have non-alcoholic Amaro Lucano, the best or second best NA version on the market depending on who you ask, and it would be a shame not to order it at a restaurant with such a focus on this Italian liqueur.

Risata Cucina is also, by 2026 standards, incredibly affordable. Large portions of pasta start at $15 for spaghetti pomodoro and cap out at $24 for fusilli with beef cheek ragu, even as other restaurants have housemade pasta prices soaring into the thirties. Entrees start at $24 chicken scarpariello and max out at $35 for 9 ounces of ribeye, where at a steakhouse, $35 won’t even get you in the door. Sides are priced in the single digits. Desserts don’t go past $10. In a moment where everyone is penny-pinching and cost-conscious, Risata Cucina meets the moment without cutting any corners. And that? There’s not many restaurants that can do that.

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★★★: Risata Cucina is excellent and consistent.

My three favorite bites: If you go and don’t order the porkchop, what are you doing? Follow it with a classic pasta (your choice, they’re all good) and swordfish piccata.

Where to sit for the best service: Anywhere. Service is even, the patio is huge and shaded, and the bar has enough seats for you to squeeze in after work without a reservation.

Good for: Kids (there’s a “kiddos menu” with a spaghetti and meatballs to color in), date nights, and gossiping with the girls. Really, honestly, you can go here for your anniversary or a casual night out. It’s rare to find a restaurant that can do it all, but Risata Cucina can.

My one big tip: Say it with me: order the porkchop.

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What the stars mean:

★★★★: Best in Class

These are Minnesota’s best restaurants. Think category-defining and excellent all around in cookery, hospitality, and beverage.

★★★: Excellent and Consistent

These restaurants are excellent and consistent, meaning that the meals are similar across all my visits. Think meals worth writing home about where all parts of the menu are equally strong.

★★: Good or Inconsistent

These are either restaurants that are good but not excellent or excellent on some visits and not excellent on others. Think a restaurant with some stars and some flops, a restaurant that excels at pasta but not at dessert, or a restaurant that is excellent in cookery and not as strong in service.

★: Skip it

Self-explanatory!