Tavolata was one of my favorite restaurants when I moved to Seattle four years ago. It’s remained my 7-year-old daughter’s; she fell in love with their spicy rigatoni when she was 4, which meant we still went for special occasions even though I’d long since tired of it. It’s not that the food wasn’t good, but that the menu never seemed to change. However, when we went last week to celebrate a birthday, I was incredibly excited to see a bevy of new dishes, all of them enticing. I finally settled on the octopus Bolognese, which I later found out had been added to the menu just that night. Served over lumache (snail-shaped) pasta, the tomato sauce was brightly flavored via a gremolata (lemon zest, garlic, and parsley) and full of super-tender (not rubbery) small discs of octopus, which brought the plate a gratifying hint of the sea. The parsley garnish gave the dish even more of that zesty brightness—an herb used the way it’s meant to be. By choosing octopus and parsley, Tavolata is smartly able to give a hearty Bolognese a lighter spin. I couldn’t eat it fast enough.

nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com