Casa Novéllo, Westbrook

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Comfort food comes in many forms: gooey macaroni and cheese, juicy pot roast, perhaps even a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby eaten right out of the container. If you grew up in a family like mine, however, the meals that soothe your soul likely come slathered in red sauce, with a heaping side of pasta and a bottomless basket of Wonder Bread-style Italian bread.

On a gray day, with the economy in the dumps and a whiny preschooler clinging to my leg, the carbs-and-marinara approach seemed vastly appealing, so we dropped the kid off at a friend’s house and sped to Westbrook. Within moments of collapsing into our chairs at Casa Novéllo, my husband and I were soothing ourselves with generous glasses of grocery-store chianti and some of that malleable bread. My husband dipped his in the goopy mixture of olive oil, rosemary, parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper that our waitress prepared tableside, while I slathered mine with softened butter from one of those single-serving plastic tubs with foil covers. It was heaven.
As you may have surmised by now, Casa Novéllo is not a fine dining restaurant: your water is served in a plastic tumbler with a paper-wrapped straw, and the dessert menu is a laminated affair with at least one handwritten sticker denoting a discontinued item. And that’s exactly how owner Gary Manoogian likes it. When the Westbrook native founded the friendly eatery in 2000, his philosophy was simple: “Almost everything we serve is fresh and from scratch,” he says. “We do large portions at reasonable prices — that’s our niche.”

Though we knew about the portion size ahead of time, we couldn’t resist ordering an appetizer along with our entrées. (You’re not going to impress anyone with false austerity at a spot like this.) Our personable, attentive waitress delivered a decadent plate of shrimp and scallops fried in a crispy beer batter. A moment later, a diner at the next table commented on the amazing odors emanating from our table.

With an eight-seat bar and a busy takeout operation in addition to the seventy-five seats in its dining room, Casa Novéllo fosters this kind of neighborly congeniality. And while Manoogian says the restaurant draws regulars from Gorham and Windham, its heart is clearly in Westbrook. Manoogian himself makes the bread daily, and even the batter on our fried seafood was based on beer from local microbrewer David Geary. So it should’ve been no surprise that my husband, a Westbrook native whose parents still live in town, ran into one of his childhood neighbors and a kid he’d once overseen at day camp. Now grown men, the two and their companions were dining at a back table that groaned under the weight of their entrees.

Our own meals were no skimpy spa fare. Casa Novéllo’s menu is full of classic Italian-American dishes — chicken Marsala, meat lasagna, shrimp scampi, and pasta with your choice of sauces (marinara, Alfredo, and bolognese). We went straight for the specials board, choosing penne a la vodka with shrimp and lobster, and veal parmesan, a longtime guilty pleasure that I attempted to ameliorate by selecting whole wheat penne for my side of pasta. Each entrée came with a house salad — mostly iceberg lettuce with a few slices each of cucumber, tomato, and red onion, and house Italian dressing that tasted suspiciously like it came out of a bottle. All of which is to say it was pretty darn close to my personal platonic ideal for comfort food.

As for those entrées: The penne a la vodka was fantastic — perfectly cooked seafood in a reddish-pink sauce that had just a hint of a kick. My veal parm, however, suffered from a slight lack of attention, with the cutlet’s thin ends dry from overcooking and the accompanying dish of pasta boiled well past al dente. Did any of that stop me from gobbling it up, however? Heck, no.

Truth be told, neither of us came anywhere near finishing. Our waitress cheerfully packed us an entire bag of leftovers, each dish encased in its own Styrofoam clamshell and neatly labeled with the contents and the day’s date. (Not even Grandma Cavallaro provides this level of service.) By lunchtime the next day, they were gone.

Casa Novéllo is located at 694 Main Street in Westbrook. Open from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Friday, 3 to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, and 3 to 8:30 p.m on Sunday. Lunch entrees $9 to $14; dinner entrées $10 to $20. Full bar. Handicap accessible. 207-854-9909.