[Pink Pig Time Machine: June 15, 2015]
Sounds like an Italian fest: Uovo and Lo Scalco, both new and buzzed about ten years ago, the first on Avenue B, the second down in Tribeca, in a space which has seen a steady turnover of restaurants. Lo Scalco being a fairly swift casualty.
But appearances are misleading.
Uovo may be Italian for egg, but the space was subsequently to host a very pleasant trattoria, Spina, for six years. But Uovo was nothing if not a chef-driven restaurant, featuring Matt Hamilton's own cuisine--which I guess you'd call new American, if anything. Matt had done time at Prune, and would move on after Uovo closed to Belcourt--where I profiled him for the Times' Local East Village blog--and then to his hand-built Bed-Stuy outpost, Lulu & Po, where he's manning the range today.
But it was at Uovo that we got to know a number of Matt's signatures--coffee-braised brisket, a lamb burger, and sweetbread poppers among them.
First of several visits for me in June 2005:
Sweetbread poppers
Pork belly with sauerkraut
Coffee-braised brisket
Fiddlehead ferns
Ginger "pudding"
Rhubarb with sour cream
Champagne, Côtes du Roussillon, Moscato di Asti
Midweek must have seen a jaunt to Russ & Daughters, because I find myself gorging at home on the new Holland herring, kippered King salmon. and cold-smoked salmon with a bottle of Crémant de Jura. Casual eats? Casual pork, I should say: roast pork with tostones at Joselito's; a lunch-time pulled pork sandwich at Virgil's.
Then Lo Scalco.
For once my diary lets me down. I remember going. on the basis of good reviews and word of mouth, and I recall an earnest attempt at Italian fine dining. But my diary says nothing except that I went to nearby Brandy Library first, and that I ate vitello tonnato. Surely not just that. No, and fortunately my Mouthfuls post about my meal has survived:
We were pleased and yet slightly saddened by a weekend visit to Lo Scalco - saddened because only seven tables showed any signs of human life, and the staff drifted to and fro purposelessly beneath the soaring white arc of the ceiling. A lovely, comforting, peaceful, adult setting, very good food, and nobody there.
Unless my NYT search engine is misleading me (and I have regarded the Times as a "tool" since the new TV campaign started), Lo Scalco still languishes unreviewed by El Bruni. It deserves some attention. Apart from a couple of bizarre service glitches, this was really enjoyable. The menu - longer and more ambitious than the selection on www.menupages.com would suggest - is divided by ingredients, listing under each item an appetizer, a farinaceous item, and an entree. We let the kitchen put out dinner together.
After a refreshing amuse consisting of a small crab claw, a tiny tomato, and a smooth fennel puree, ther first appetizer was that old standard vitello tonnato, perfectly correct in composition, and lifted by a fresh market salad, incorporating yellow beets and a few mandarin segments with the leaves (not mache - not sure what - nice).
It is a very long time since I've been to Babbo, but from memory the Lo Scalco pasta courses do not suffer by comparison. The first was just a couple of soft sheets of pasta simply folded over two cheeses, mozarella and ricotta, and briefly baked. This was followed by a raviolo, made from a contrastingly robust but still tender pasta (wholewheat?), with a punchy lamb filling - and I mean, this really tasted of sheep - ringed with a fine puree of green asparagus and a further circle of meat reduction. Two first rate dishes - and pasta is on my "ambivalent" list.
I began the fish course with my usual shrug of disdain - another rectangle of sea bass - but was won over by the garnishes - tomatoes richly stewed, I think, in butter; strongly flavored, purple micro-basil; dabs of unidentified caviar. A good dish, in the end.
The meat course was not one I would have chosen - a beef roulade, with a puree of potatoes. There are probably some more exciting selections on the menu (I should have asked for the duck/suckling pig dish mentioned by Ron).
I permitted the captain to select cheeses, stipulating only that he overlook the over-familiar Parmiggiano and Pecorino. Among the selections, I enjoyed a semi-soft cheese strongly flavored with black truffle, and a sharp, nutty little item called Piave. Dessert was a standard flourless chocolate cake/chocolate ice cream combo. Following glasses of prosecco, a bottle of Taurasi Riserva, 1997, was perhaps a little vigorous for the cuisine, but enjoyable in itself.
We met the chef afterwards. I hope his skill is rewarded by more full tables. Maybe he needs to get a TV show.
I met the chef? I don't remember. And am I still so verbose?
Comments