Queens
December 16, 2008
Vesta Trattoria
21-02 30th Ave., Astoria; (718) 545-5550
Lunch, Mon.-Fri., noon-4 p.m.;
Dinner, Sun.-Mon., 5-10 p.m.; Tue.-Thur., 5-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m.-12 a.m.
CUISINE: Italian
VIBE: Warm nabe spot
OCCASION: Casual date, neighborhood bites, family or group dinner
DON'T-MISS DISH: Three-meat lasagna, lamb shank, baby Jesus cake
PRICES: Appetizers, $8; entrees, $14; desserts, $5.50
RESERVATIONS: Accepted
Have you ever had wine by the shot? I hadn't either, until a few weeks ago.
I don't mean shot, as in a one-ounce shot of whiskey. I mean a port glass of Primitivo - a spicy, medium-bodied red from Puglia - for $2.50. This is a wine you could drink all through dinner.
But why bother? If you can drink wine by the shot, you can try many more wines and pair them more closely with each course you order. And still walk out of the restaurant without weaving.
Where did I run across this clever idea? At the corner of 30th Avenue & 21st Street in Astoria, Queens - a little place called Vesta. Queens may sound like a long ways away, but this trattoria is closer from midtown than most of downtown. Here's how I think of it - the lamb shank I had the other night is just over the 59th Street bridge.
Giuseppe Falco is the co-owner of Vesta and the host. In the kitchen is Michelle Vido. Between them, they've worked at Monkey Bar, Sapa, The River Cafe, Little Giant, Trattoria Del Arte and Bond 45 - big-deal Manhattan restaurants. And they're serving big-deal food on 30th Avenue, right across from the 99 cent store. The menu isn't complicated: three types of pizza, lasagna, linguine, gnocchi, calamari, chicken, steak, some simple sides and a few nightly specials. With only a couple of exceptions, these are all wonderful.
It's not so much that Vido reinvents these dishes. She doesn't overdesign them, she doesn't overpresent them, she's not trying to be a culinary architect, and she doesn't crowd them with unwanted ingredients. In fact, there's no fashion to this food whatsoever - only flavor.
What you're left with after a meal at Vesta is a series of vivid impressions. Some are impressions of taste - the preserved lemons in the charred green beans, bits of toasted hazelnut in the cous cous, sweet shreds of pork in the three-meat lasagna, the cracker-like crust of the pizza, the cipollini onions that pop up and here there on the menu.
But some impressions are more complicated. You order the braised lamb shank. Out comes something fit for Fred Flintstone. Where is the electric knife, you wonder? But with one touch of the fork, the shank comes undone. It falls into pieces, as if insisting you have a little cous cous with each bite or a little caramelized onion. And of course, you eat the perfectly-crumbed exterior pieces first.
Vesta's a pretty plain place - as warm as it is simple. The diner feels at home here and the food feels at home here. The portions are huge and very well-priced. Even if the portions were tiny, they'd still be worth coming to Queens for.
In every dish there's a dash of sophistication - the prune reduction under the roast salmon, the way Vido sears the gnocchi, the spiced sausage on the pizza, the clementine and Grand Marnier sauce on the panna cotta.
And now a few words about the baby Jesus cake - La Torta del Piccolo Bambino Jesu Christo. It looks so humble, so unassuming - a square mass of cafeteria cake without frosting, only dense with dates and drenched in a caramel sauce. As for how it tastes, I leave that one up to you.
Vesta is a genuine step forward for neighborhood cooking - the idea that every neighborhood deserves a really good restaurant.
March 18, 2008
A fettuccine worth traveling for.
ADDRESS: 55-15 37th Ave., near 56th St., Woodside. PHONE: (718) 446-1500
DINNER: Tues.-Sat., 5:30-11 p.m.; Sun., 3-10:30 p.m. Closed Mondays.
CUISINE Regional Italian
VIBE Charming market-restaurant
OCCASION Destination dining; authentic Italian supper
DON'T-MISS DISH Fettuccine al'Antonio; polenta-crusted tilapia
PRICE Appetizers, $9.50-$14; entrees, $17-$26; desserts, $7
RESERVATIONS Accepted
No ice. No tap water. No cheese on seafood dishes. No lemon peel in espresso. These are just four of the "Ten Commandments" patrons must abide by at Sapori d'Ischia, an Italian specialty market-restaurant in an industrial section of Woodside, Queens. Try requesting butter for the bread; your server may return with a framed set of rules to review before attempting an order.
It seems presumptuous for a wholesale store that peddles imported goods by day to enforce such vigilant decrees of dining by night. Especially when you may be seated against refrigerated shelves stocked with cheeses. Before you protest, taste the signature fettuccine al'Antonio: It's an exalted rite of passage that should be their Eleventh Commandment. Prosciutto-studded noodles get plunged into a pungent wheel of Parmesan and coated with a hypnotic dose of white truffle oil.
This giant Parmesan wheel is as much a fixture in the dining room as the artisanal pastas and canned tomatoes, which are supplied to many of the city's top restaurants. At night, votive candles spruce up store shelves and live music fills the charming space. A weathered mural of the port of Ischia, an island off Naples, hangs dutifully from the wall.
Father-and-son owners Franco and Antonio Galano, natives of Ischia, passionately embrace the authentic cuisine of Italy. With its straightforward and boldly flavored cooking, this eight-year-old eatery doesn't so much clamor for your attention as command it.
Octopus gets an unusually hearty treatment here: Charred baby octopus is nestled in a rich stew of caper berries, cranberry beans and radicchio. The crusty house bread should be used to mop up the delectable pool of sauce that forms below this mix. A succulent braised rabbit is flecked with peas, house-cured pancetta and slivers of potato. Wide ribbons of pappardelle, slathered in a rustic ragu of hot and sweet sausages, are nearly as gratifying.
While an onslaught of new restaurants distract with gimmicks and overcomplicated dishes, Sapori d'Ischia aims to satisfy and often succeeds. The steadiness of the kitchen, run by co-chefs Roberto Villanueva (Jean Claude) and Daniele Barbos (Restaurant Regina Isabella), instills confidence in its diners.
But what's even more compelling than the simplicity of old-school classics are the dashes of polish and creativity among the seafood dishes. A polenta-crusted tilapia is enriched by a zesty marriage of red pepper puree and a walnut parsley pesto. It gets an additional boost from a garlicky fricassee of string beans and spinach. A monkfish is delicately glazed in Pinot Grigio and draped over a lush hill of truffle-scented escarole. The wine list has a fine selection of boutique Italian producers with 15 varietals available by the glass.
Sapori d'Ischia is not without its drawbacks. The brick oven pizzas were repeatedly undercooked. Floppy crusts caved under the weight of their toppings. I ran into a similar problem with gummy gnocchi. I could've been eating raw dough. And though live opera music on Thursdays can make this market feel romantic, it stifles conversation.
There's no celebrity chef in the kitchen or glossy furnishings, but there is plenty to savor on the table. Even the olive oil claims distinction: The olives are grown on the family's groves in Italy. It doesn't get much more authentic than that.
December 6, 2007
Cuisine: Contemporary Greek
Vibe: Unassuming neighborhood spot
Occasion: Family dinner
Don't-Miss Dish: Baked whole fish; rabbit with bergamot
Drink Specialty: Greek wines
Price: Appetizers, $5-$12.95; entrees, $17-$27; desserts, $6.50-$8.50
Reservations Accepted, but not necessary.
Address: 23-01 31 St., at the corner of 23rd Ave. (Astoria, NY)
Phone: (718)267-0800
Capsule: This earnest Greek restaurant delivers a terrific baked whole fish.
You don't dine at Athens Tavern for its decorative nods to the Mediterranean coast. It's a humble Astoria eatery on a street with a healthy scattering of Greek restaurants. There is no vaulted ceiling or breezy white drapery. It's a simple space with white paper-covered tables, windows facing the street and terra-cotta walls and kitschy canvases of men performing a traditional Greek dance.
You go to Athens Tavern for the whole baked fish stuffed with wild greens. On some nights, it's a porgy or a black sea bass. On others, it's a gleaming red snapper that arrives at the table completely intact: eyes, tail and a full set of teeth. The snapper tastes as if it's just been taken off a fishing line and stuffed with a fresh mix of dandelions, watercress and louisa.
"Louisa is a lemon grass herb from Crete," explains co-owner Antonia Sapounakis in a telephone interview. Sapounakis, who hails from Crete, was formerly a waitress at both Avra and Estatiorio Milos in Manhattan. She and co-owner Nikos Gregoriou, secured Michelin-starred chef Yiannis Baxevanis, to oversee their "gastro-taverna" menu. Noted for his modern Greek cooking at Yiorti restaurant in Athens, Baxevanis lends this Astoria kitchen a revolving roster of his sous chefs from the Greek capital.
Other than their roots, Sapounakis and Baxevanis share an adoration of Cretan cuisine and its abundance of fresh herbs. Baxevanis even hand-plucks many of the exotic seasonings on Athens Tavern's menu himself.
A roasted chicken, served butterflied, is garnished with a fistful of fresh thyme, rosemary and sage. A whole rabbit, marinated overnight in red wine, gets a heavy dose of bergamot. The meat is fragrant and juicy, served on velvety, mashed sweet potatoes. A garlicky eggplant spread is streaked with Cretan barley rusk, which provides just enough earthy balance to an otherwise smooth meze.
You are apt to find a better spread of signature Greek starters at other establishments around the city. Here, an unpleasantly thick taramosalata showed no tangible evidence of carp roe; a homemade pie stuffed with leeks, spinach and Mizithra cheese tasted chalky; and though nicely charred on the outside, the grilled octopus was tough with overbearing strides of fennel and anise.
When you have a regular rotation of chefs in the kitchen, inconsistencies are inevitable. On one visit, octopus gently sweetened with red dessert wine and wrapped in onion petals made for a supple, nicely balanced appetizer. On another occasion, it came soaked in the wine reduction and indistinguishable, other than by its chewy texture.
But the best of Athens Tavern is the fish selection: porgy, red mullet, shrimps and langoustines, which arrive sweet and moist with subtle strides of lemon, olive oil and the charcoal grill. On a recent visit, a nearby table of 12 ordered 12 whole baked fish. Though it seemed slightly comical, they had the right idea. For better taramosalata or tzatziki - which is not on the menu here - head down the street to Elias Corner. For an excellently cooked snapper that costs $30 and easily feeds three, Athen's Tavern is a premium addition to the neighborhood's Greek classics.
