[Pigging by Wilfrid: March 31, 2014]
As it happens, my meals at All'onda straddled Pete Wells' review in the Times. I won't be reading Well's review until I've finished writing this, but I couldn't miss the cute headline.
"A Gondola Bobbing Towards Japan"--a reference to the restaurant's name: "wavy."
But to the extent it leads you to expect Venetian-Japanese fusion, misleading. All'onda has Asian accents here and there, but it's heart lies in neat, restrained, Northern Italian cooking. And rightly or wrongly, I use "Northern" as a tag to indicate that red sauce is not the deal here.
The wine list is self-consciously northern, replete with interesting bottles from north of Tuscany (you'll find Lagrein, that typically Tyrolean varietal). Chris Cannon, a veteran of the Michael White empire, is credited with putting it together; in the kitchen is Chris Jaeckle, of White's Ai Fiori. This is an assured opening, as you might expect with that pedigree behind it: service impeccable from the moment you call for a reservation.
Although it's possible to walk in and snag a seat at the bar or communal table (that's all they have in the small downstairs space, the restaurant was busy each time I've dined there (and each time I've walked past; it's just west of Union Square). Upstairs is no Siberia, though: it's where they keep the comfortable booths and generously spaced tables, in a more relaxed atmosphere.
There are very good values on that wine-list, but among the bottles rather than the glasses. A $12 Prosecco was disappointingly thin and dry; I'm sure I'd have been better off with the Franciacorta Brut Rose Montenisa Lombardia--but it's $19 a glass (about $37 a bottle retail). Similarly, the Rosso Piceno, a nice, flinty red, is well-priced at $55 on the list (it's $25 or less retail), but really isn't a $15 btg offering.
Indeed, if you plan to drink three or more glasses with your meal, the list's picks in the $40 region make much more sense than proceeding by the glass. The Pinot Nero Calatroni ($37) was fragrant--more flowers than fruit--if amusingly over-praised by the sommelier, who compared it with Gevrey-Chambertin.
The menu starts with a snack list, which prompts you, of course, to insert an extra savory course. Arancini were as good as I've had: hot, crunchy outside; soft, truffly within. As for the touted Japanese influence, I did see everyone ordering the tuna. It looked like a cube of raw, or barely cooked tuna, sitting in a pool of miso sauce. I didn't think it looked appetizing, and I ignored the trend.
Maybe the same sauce lapped my calf's liver and polenta? It didn't make much impact. Liver and bacon (okay, pancetta) sounds like a large dish, but this was bijou (the quantity of pancetta is miniscule). The best element here: the earthy lentils on a smooth purée--parsnip, I believe; the menu doesn't say. Like, I presume, the tuna, the liver comes as a practically raw cube.
Calf's liver needs to be carefully trimmed of veins and gristle, but if you sear it you can disguise some imperfections. Here, my first mouthful included some anatomical rubber band or other, and I had to deposit it on the plate. A bad start, but that was really the kitchen's only misstep.
The razor clam appetizer was tweezery. The clams (raw) are sliced into short lengths. The sopressata garnish is so finely diced as to be almost impossible to capture with a fork. There was miso, but again it didn't carry the dish. The main pleasure was the clean, sweet flavor of the al dente clam flesh.
Sweetbreads: another very delicate portion. Three (was it four?) little chunks, each breaded (and not as crunchy as th arancini). These reminded me irresistibly of the sweetbread poppers Matt Hamilton used to serve as a bar snack at Uovo. A dab of balsamic sauce was classically Italian.
The differentiating element of the dish, a shower of dried bonito flakes. Okay, there's Japan I guess, but they are so light and blow-away, and mild, that it was mainly a matter of battling through them to get to the glands. I felt they neither enhanced nor detracted from the dish, although they looked kind of pretty.
I'd heard all kinds of word of mouth about the bucatini with uni and breadcrumbs, little of it good, so I steered myself toward the lumache with duck ragù. Pastas--and entrées--are much heartier than appetizers here, and there was nothing remotely tweezery about the presentation of the lumache--unless you count the speckling of chocolate sauce around the rim of the bowl.
The chocolate element I was expecting in the duck sauce was muted--the bitter treviso made the most noise, in a not unpleasant way. It balanced the richness of the meat. This was billed as "aged duck," and you might expect it to be very, well, ducky. Clearly it's duck, if you know it's duck, but on a blind tasting I suspect many people could be fooled into thinking it was lamb, or some other mammal. It's a hearty dark sauce, with soft, stringy meat; it doesn't have big duck character. There was also some runniness at the bottom of the dish, but overall this was warming, comforting.
How often is the entrée the star? I really enjoyed working my way through some of that pinot noir with several huge pieces of guinea hen with a very light foie gras sauce. A heck of a plate for under $30.
If you need me to picky about kitchen missteps, I'd have to note that the leg--braised to silky softness--had waited a little too long to be joined by the breasts--cooked à la minute. The result was meat of two distinct temperatures; but really, you couldn't be miffed at this plate for long. The breasts were flawless--crisp, succulent skin pulling away from juicy meat. I suppose if you weren't working through too many snacks and appetizers, you could decorate this with some vegetable sides, but I liked the simplicity.
Dessert was very grown up, and continued the city's fascination with Fernet Branca. Growing up in the UK, I knew it only as a medicinal hangover cure, but the best thing I ate at Pearl & Ash was the Fernet Branca ice cream sandwich. At All'onda, it scents a panna cotta (but it's not overwhelmingly bitter). Shards of preserved grapefruit bring modest acid. A lovely dish.
And a lovely restaurant, all things considered. Here's the website. (And now I'll read the reviews.)
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