Corte Oven & Bar opens Tuesday, October 27, at 1175 Ludlow Street in East Market, and the first thing a diner sees is the oven. It sits at the center of an open kitchen, and Chef David Feola built the menu around it. Handmade pastas, vegetables and larger plates all pass through the flame, directly or by way of a smoky dressing.
Corte Oven & Bar Menu: Vegetables, Pasta and Wood Oven Plates
The Corte Oven & Bar menu is organized into small plates, vegetables, pastas, wood oven plates and sandwiches, with the oven involved in more of it than the headings suggest. The vegetable section is where Feola’s kitchen sounds most confident.
The vegetable list holds some of the best ideas. Blistered Leek ($13) comes over a vichyssoise purée with lemon aioli and crispy shallot. Chicory Salad ($15) arrives with arancini, a pairing Feola brought over from Corio. Baby carrots with hazelnuts and labneh, charred broccoli with Gruyère crisps, and a kale salad with Asian pear and hot honey vinaigrette fill out the section.
Pasta runs from $14 to $23. Bucatini with blistered tomatoes, anchovy and garlic breadcrumbs is $16, and it reads like a red-sauce dish with a point of view. The Maryland Crab Risotto, made with squid ink, is $23 and the priciest pasta on the list. Mafaldine with fennel sausage and broccoli rabe, and rigatoni with crispy chicken skin and cherry peppers, round it out.
The Wood Oven section is where Corte Oven & Bar earns its name. Chicken Caperi, with capers, lemon, pine nuts and anchovy, is $33. Sea bream with puttanesca is $31, the pork chop with fregola is $37, and a 32 oz ribeye is $119. Feola wants to find “unexpected ways to incorporate the flame into every dish,” and the smoky salad dressings are the proof.
Clams in Purgatory ($21), Crispy Halloumi over eggplant purée ($14) and Crispy Onion Petals ($12) cover the small plates, and four sandwiches, from crispy pork to tuna confit, are priced at $17 and $18.
Corte Oven & Bar Drinks and Design
Chris Gueye, the beverage manager at Corte Oven & Bar, runs a bar program built on Italian spirits, bitters and vermouth. Expect inventive spritzes, herb-infused Negronis and martinis, and clarified cocktails, along with a wine list drawn from Italy and the Old World. The drinks are meant to sit next to the wood-fired food, so the flavors match instead of competing.
The room is the former Mulherin’s Pizzeria, redesigned by Stokes Architecture & Design around the open kitchen. Saddle leather banquettes, hand-clipped mosaic tile and reclaimed marble and soapstone tabletops sit under brass pendant lights, with an antiqued mirror behind the bar. Outside, a wrap-around patio runs under a linen green awning, lined with deep green planters.
Corte Oven & Bar Brings the Corio Team to East Market
Feola, Ryan Mulholland and James Smith are all alumni of Vernick Food & Drink, and they opened Corio in University City in 2025. Corte Oven & Bar is their second restaurant. Mulholland describes the goal as a spot where locals choose to get lunch on a workday, catch up with friends and mark a special occasion.
At Corio, Feola cooks small plates, pizzas and pastas with Italian roots and American influences. Corte keeps the Italian backbone and adds the oven, which gives the second restaurant a personality of its own.
Dinner starts October 27 and runs daily, with lunch to follow. Reservations are on OpenTable, and the full menu is on the Corte website.
A wood-fired oven gives a restaurant a center. Every diner can see where dinner comes from, and the cooks can see every table. The oven answers most questions about Corte: what the kitchen cares about, where the room faces and why a second glass sounds like a good idea.
Images: Neal Santos
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