Ball Square is becoming one of my favorite dining destinations. It’s always been a hot brunch destination with Sound Bites, Ball Square Cafe and Kelly’s Diner all in a tight cluster, but newer denizens Avenue Bar and Kitchen (hard to find, Detroit-style pizza), Blue Elephant Thai and swank newcomer Olivia’s Kitchen with its fine Northern Italian fare are changing the culinary landscape with diverse flavors and textures from around the globe.
Add to that list Ciao, a pizzeria that opened in Ball Square in 2024. Bright and spare, yet still cozy and intimate, the small cigar box dining area — a bar of four, a long high top than can accommodate a dozen, four cafe tables and a window bar — gives way to the massive, open kitchen space arranged around a massive Italian-made, wood‑fired brick oven. It’s a thing of sheer porcelain beauty that looks like a staging unit for the next Artemis endeavor.
There’s a bubbly, festive vibe to Ciao, with a pleasing clamor at peak hours. The menu (lunch and dinner) is small, tight and well-honed. Natch, Neapolitan pie is the focal point. The dough here, as at other gourmet pizzerias in the area is carefully curated. Before being put to use, the dough sits out to ferment and flatten out for a day, so the pies cook up super-fast.
On a recent visit the restaurant was pretty hopping, but the friendly server kept telling customers it would take just five minutes for an order to come up. That’s because the artisanal Neapolitan round is only in the oven for a minute or two, time enough to transform the fermented, yeasty dough into a soft, chewy pillow of warm comfort. For your slate of toppings, there’s the basic margarita with super fresh mozzarella, a corn and ricotta, a fungi (mushrooms and truffle cream), the guanciale (pork jowl and asparagus) and my winner, the salsiccia, house-made fennel sausage, mozzarella, roasted tomatoes and Calabrian peppers. It’s a spicy pie where the tomato sauce and hot pepper oil soak into the thin crust and give you a peppery pucker to go with the muscular zing of the fennel — the amount of sausage you get (it’s ground) is generous. As far as sausage pizzas go, the salsicca’s unique. The edges of the crust are soft, airy, moist and delicious.
Ciao also serves salads (caesar and beet with whipped goat cheese), paninis (an Italian, chicken with roasted red peppers and a veggie pressed), bruschettas (traditional and one with shrimp) as well as a handful of select pastas, including rigatoni. There is also a spaghetti with white wine, lemon, garlic butter and more of those Calabrian peppers. The pastas are also house made and you can taste it. That shrimp and tangle of properly al dente pasta, dazzled, the prawns we big, plump and succulent — and so many, atop and hidden below. The spicy wine sauce reddened by the peppers carried the lemon offset nicely, with a touch of creamy viscosity to it. Plus, the dish is served in a deep bowl which keeps the pasta and gamberoni warm throughout dining, where a plate or a shallow bowl might otherwise allow coagulate or the cooling of the shrimp. The first and last bite were just as hot/warm and off the stovetop fresh.
Ball Square marks the second outpost of Ciao with the mothership located in Chelsea that opened a decade ago. The love and care for the food is obvious on the fork and in your mouth. Pricewise, it’s a reasonable cost for a nosh that’s Italian fine hiding behind the veil of “casual.” The music piped overhead is a wonder, too, including pop diva takes on Psy’s “Gangnam Style” or an Adele aper belting out classic Depeche Mode.
Have a favorite dish or dine out spot that we’ve not covered and think we should? Email Tom Meek at tmeek@cambridgeday.com.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
