Becca and I went out to an intriguing new restaurant, Tigelleria (Yelp), a few nights ago. It’s Italian, “100% organic,” and specializes in tigelle, a dish originating in northern Italy that consists of flatbread stuffed with various fillings and tapenades.

We were new to tigelle, so we covered our bases and ordered cheeses, vegetables, and a side of prosciutto. The cheeses ran the gamut from soft goat’s milk to hard Parmesan, and came with sweet apple, pear, and fig tapenades. The vegetables were sliced impossibly thin, grilled with olive oil and basil, and came with tomato and olive tapenades and hummus. The tigelle itself was good, if unremarkable, and fresh from the oven.

None of the ingredients themselves particularly stood out. Combined with the tigelle and tapenade, though, they were much better than the sum of their parts. We spent the meal trying all the different combinations, and we were hard pressed to find a single one we didn’t like.

When dessert rolled around, the caffe d’orzo immediately caught my eye. It’s a caffeine-free faux espresso brewed with roasted barley, originally considered a poor person’s drink but now a trendy, healthier alternative to coffee.

It was…interesting. Not for me, but definitely interesting, and worth trying. Happily, the tiramisu more than made up for it.

Overall, we loved the food, the atmosphere, the service, and the new things we discovered. The novelty will fade eventually, but still, we’re excited to go back!