I'm often asked, "What's the future for restaurants?" The near future may mean a restaurant in your backyard. Restaurateurs are branching to the suburbs to set up their second, third, or even fourth ventures. It's a smart move: Find an audience that's underserved, bring them sophisticated food and the star quality of a big-time name, and cash in on a captive and appreciative audience. And no worries about hiring a valet company; parking is usually free.
Consider: Jamie Mammano of Mistral and Sorellina plans a Burlington restaurant soon. Frank McClelland will open a second Sel de la Terre later this year in Natick. Michael Schlow of Radius, Via Matta, and Great Bay jumped the gun on this trend, opening Alta Strada this winter in Wellesley. (Todd English was even earlier with a Figs at this site and at another in Chestnut Hill, but those didn't last as his far-flung empire gathered steam.)
Alta Strada is essentially Via Matta west - with a few adjustments. In fact, its chef, Luis Morales, opened the Park Plaza restaurant for Schlow and partner Christopher Myers in 2002. Here, almost all the menu is offered in small to very small plates, with only a few entrees. And the prices and the ambience are more casual than its city cousin. But the best dishes, which shine in their simplicity and freshness, channel the vivid flavors of Via Matta.
It's important that the food make a bold impression on the diner because this wide-open room is either handsome or as utilitarian-looking as the interior of a big box store, depending on your taste. All the surfaces are hard and the colors stark, mostly gray, white, and black with a little red trim. Noise bounces mercilessly, cutting off most attempts at conversation. That's amplified one evening by a large party of women near us whose voices pierce the air and by chairs scraping across the floor. We resorted to yelling. If suburbanites are reported to be losing their hearing in the next couple of years, blame new restaurants along with rock concerts.
Alta Strada opened in late January and has been very busy, says Morales in a phone interview. Growing pains are especially evident on a visit in late February when our waiter seems discombobulated - when he remembers we're there. Two of us get the same main course, though we ordered two different dishes. Two desserts don't come at all, and the cappuccino is lukewarm. Through all this, he looks mostly annoyed and never apologetic. However, by an April visit, on a weeknight, the place is still packed, but the young waitress is efficient, friendly, and graciously helpful.
Concentration on the food pays off, especially because some gems speak so softly. Morales and his cooks make ricotta daily - in fact, he says they have trouble matching production to demand. Take one taste and you'll want to buy up the night's supply. It's delicate, creamy, and flecked with just enough sage and swirled with enough olive oil to contrast to its milky flavor. A roasted shiitake mushroom salad over arugula is another simple combination with enough verve to make you take notice, and the slightly browned cauliflower with raisins has the same effect.
You could linger in the antipasti and primi (or appetizer) sections and make a meal of them. Excellent tuna with olives and peppers has assertive flavors, and broccoli rabe sprinkled with flecks of chilies and bits of garlic lilts on the tongue. Only a chilled calamari salad with chickpeas and celery seems wan and underseasoned. A pizza topping of spicy broccoli rabe and sausage would hold a hearty appeal, if it didn't taste dried out over its thin crust. Main-course salads echo a lot of the antipasti and primi selections. One of tuna, white beans, and eggplant boasts all strong tastes, as does a Tuscan salad with chickpeas, very good salami, and curls of pecorino Toscano.
This is definitely the place to abandon the notion that carbs are all bad. Spaghetti is tossed with beautiful tiny clams and cherry tomatoes and parsley. It's another example of less being so much more when the ingredients and the technique are exemplary. Chitarra with shrimp sauce reintroduces the deep, sweet taste of the crustacean, so often a limp extra in the seafood lineup. And cavetelli with finely chopped broccoli and pancetta is spiked with chilies, an irresistible melange with salty and hot notes. Then to cool down the palate, there are moon-shaped pasta packages filled with mushrooms and simply dressed with a drizzle of cream, olive oil, and lots of Parmesan.
It's easy to overlook main courses, particularly since on this menu there are only three. The chicken rates high on crispy skin and moist interior, but the Tuscan pot roast is a tad dry and stringy, needing a more moist texture and a little more saucing. Grilled salmon with Sardinian couscous filled the seafood spot on the list; Morales mentions that another main course is being added.
Although an apple crostada with fig jam is a worthy ending to a meal, finishing with a more Italian finale, a few more sips of a nice Dolcetto or a Nebbiolo and bites of biscotti would be even better. That, plus a final espresso, would give us time to contemplate another visit when our appetites for more antipasti and pasta would be renewed. Oh, and, of course, we'd start with more homemade ricotta. 
