First, I have to explain how I arrived at this dinner. It started a few years ago, through a long, and strange story, when I met Chris. We quickly became friends and together created a lot of crazy memories painting the town red, which is a very polite and politically correct way to cover a multitude of sins. One in particular forever changed my mental reference to Yonkers. But eventually, we lost touch, for a variety of reasons that I’m not sure either of us could fully explain. It was only through the ever-misunderstood value of facebook that two years later I still had any connection to Chris. It was just a few weeks ago that we reconnected. By the way, I am aware of how vague that back-story is, but that’s neither here nor there. It is merely a back story and all you really need to know is that this was dinner with an old friend.
So he picked me up after work, and we headed off to a Mexican place, we weren’t in search of culinary genius, just a dinner to catch up over. However, it’s hard to do that at a restaurant that no longer exists. So we headed downtown into SoHo for sushi… for which there was an hour wait, an hour that our grumbling stomachs were not willing to wait. We began wandering the neighborhood, stopping to read the menus outside a few neighborhood hole-in-the-wall restaurants. If you’re not already aware, this is one of, if not the only true way, to find some of the best restaurants in the world, no matter what town or city you happen to find yourself in.
We nearly stopped for rabbit pot pie, and later quickly said no to the traditional, potentially pedestrian, Italian food. However, we stumbled upon a teeny-tiny, barely-contains-seats-for-thirty, homey-without-being-rustic, Italian place. The few tables appeared to be taken, and when we asked how long the wait would be, the young girl who greeted us scurried over to ask the man by the bar. He was dressed in black, with a non-descript white apron, kerchiefed at the neck and wearing a gently-loved fedora. Throughout the rest of the evening he appeared to jump quickly, but comfortably, between the roles of host, chef, waiter, owner, and even our oldest friend, introducing us to his wife between dinner and coffee courses.
Upon greeting us, he asked, almost apologetically in his breaking English if we could wait just 15 minutes. For anyone who knows Manhattan, 15 minutes for a good meal can hardly be considered waiting. Nevertheless, to thank us for our patience he quickly produced two flutes of Prosecco to sip while we watched him separate a small end table from a larger set table. He pulled it six inches over the threshold of the open French doors to the side walk and reset it. He sat us with a humble “wha-la” flourish. I was in love with him and his restaurant before I’d even taken a bite.
We sipped prosecco and perused the menu while settling in, I explained the Italian course names, Primi and Secondi to Chris while wistfully remembering my college semester in Rome when I actually spoke Italian. We chatted with the slightly flighty, but charming, Russian turned American waitress, who we found out is now married to a “cute- Italian.” After our order was taken, a friendly taste from the chef arrived in front of us: fresh mozzarella buffalo, fried in breadcrumbs light enough to make you forget the frying. It rested on pesto so thin that it barely held its decorative line down the plate, yet produced a basil flavor as fresh as any garden plant. This unexpected treat set the mood for the meal, a leisurely Italian meal with plenty of room for digesting and chatting with each other and the staff in between courses.
My choice of appetizer brought clams and mussels bathed and soaking in a thin tomato broth, with thick, crunchy, crostini to mop up the flavorful sauce. Not a bad way for Chris to taste his first mussels, lucky for him I was willing to share. The bite he gave me of a caprese wrapped in thin slices of swordfish (resting on the same bright green pesto) was simply not enough and I was forced to steal another, the mozzarella oozing out as my fork pierced the tender fish.
For the main course my pasta arrived full of sweet golden raisins, thin slices of sardine which were almost imperceptible in sight, but never in flavor, and enhanced by underlying tones of fennel. There was no fancy presentation, no frilly garnish, and it was never missed. Across the table Chris’ tender lamb chops arrived stacked neatly amongst cherry tomatoes.
While we resisted the temptation of dessert, my steaming Americano came with another pleasant surprise, a small cordial of Italian liquor, warming my insides more than the coffee. Throughout all of this, we were greeted by any and all three of the staff members, sometimes almost arriving at the same time. The service wasn’t about who our server was or which patrons each was designated to, instead it felt very much that we were simply there for dinner and they were simply there to host us. This is the type of place, and the type of dinner, that takes hours to eat, but in which I get so lost in that I don’t realize the time until it finally reaches an almost sad end. It is the type of place that leaves me wishing I had a better vocabulary to capture its essence, but I don’t think words, any words, will ever do it justice.
This restaurant, and this meal provided the perfect backdrop for catching up with an old friend, sharing what happened in each others’ absence, philosophizing about beliefs, and laughing over Yonkers and past stories. It’s a dinner where the food itself would be worth writing about, but which was so much more, it was an experience.
-By B
