One of the trickiest questions to ask a foodie is: So, what’s your favorite Italian restaurant? Because, of course, you have several, if not plenty, and each may represent a particular style of cooking, a particular dish, a particular mood (or a particular price category). In the pizza category, for instance, I like going to Motorino in the East Village and Roberta’s in Brooklyn, (even if my favorite NYC pizzas are at Jean Georges’ ABC Kitchen (a non-Italian joint). In the casual-traditional trattoria category, I am a diehard Lupa and Aurora regular, in the hip casual category Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria is my mecca, in the intimate neighborhood stalwart category nothing beats Po, and in the Big Ticket category, I tearfully save for Babbo.
But if any Italian joint in NYC captures the different levels of gratification I seek, my vote would go to Aurora. I’ve been to both Aurora Soho and its original in Williamsburg; while the former is a charming, if somewhat quaint Tuscan interlude in the fringes of Soho, the latter is a frikkin’ Tuscan village, complete with a garden—yes, that fine perk of Brooklyn—and dishes that make you want to pack up and move to Tuscany. (Aurora, by the way, is a place in Tuscany.)
It’s true that you can’t get away from the noise—another bonus of a successful Italian joint—or the bare brick walls and country odds-and- ends that smack of too much rusticated gambit. But the sheer panache of the food more than makes up for it. While the seemingly conventional menu gives nothing away, everything from the salads, soups, antipasti, pastas and mains has a surprising elan that doesn’t so much as wow than soothe you. It is a quiet elan, a much more intricate attainment than showy bravura. To use musical terms, the latter calls for virtuosity, the former what one might call ‘musicality.’ Much of it comes from superior produce—and the rest is pure skill.
It helps to eat with friends, too (especially those who know their food). The evening we went, we caught up with old friends who had a riverside loft half the size of Williamsburg, overlooking Manhattan, not to mention hearts bigger than the entire continent. From the minute we sat down to our tap water, all instantly seemed more elevated.
And then came the food. It was peach season, and a particularly good one, and NYC kitchens had been going nuts in their offerings of peach with everything. But the peach salad we had here was simply peerless. Its equivalent in the soup department was clearly the chilled peach soup we encountered only two days earlier at Gramercy Tavern that was so extraordinary I had to have it twice.
Here, the peach salad’s onslaught on the senses was both immediate and lasting; it all seemed effortless, yet you knew there was care and attention that went into its construction. The same applied to the mushroom salad (‘foraged mushrooms,’ so the Chef told us), with radicchio Trevisano, creamy burrata and black truffle vinaigrette. Woody, smoky, creamy, acetic—brilliant.
There was also the lip-smacking grilled octopus with crispy heirloom potatoes, caramelized cipollini onions and Calabrian chillies—not the lazy, chewy, bland rendering but one that is at once urgently tender and whose pleasures existed to be savored long after they left the tongue. They were almost the perfect satirical preface to the domestic, sure-footed calm of the primis: a seafood risotto so smooth and golden, crowned with a majestic prawn, for one, and a far from pedestrian chestnut flavored gnocchi with asparagus, mushrooms and crushed black truffle.
Also creditable are staples like linguine with clams and paccheri alla Norma, the latter brimming with the bucolic Italian goodness that only an adroit alliance of eggplant, tomato, buffalo mozzarella and pesto can achieve.
With so much crushing and foraging going on, it was hard to pass up some of the delectable contorni—namely the broccoli rabe topped with crumbled Pecorino and Calabrian chillies. The only hint of excess was the forced marriage of Brussels sprouts, otherwise a singular triumph roasted to peak sweetness, and a ricotta salad that added nothing.
As we had to catch the train back to Manhattan before 8.30 pm in order to be at another restaurant by 10.30, we had to forgo the mains. But not before we had a quick taste of the beautifully cooked seared scallops sassed up with grilled asparagus, white bean and melted cherry tomato ragu, and finished with black olive-rosemary oil. “Well,” my daughter said, looking visibly disappointed at having to miss much of the i secondi action, “Are you sure this other restaurant—what is it called, Minetta Tavern—is worth it?”
