Friday, May 25, 2007

Insieme
777 7th Avenue (at 51st, at the Michelangelo Hotel)

I had found this restaurant by accident on the Internet and thought I would try it one evening with a friend. It turns out this small, chic hotel restaurant had opened just a few weeks earlier, and it was a heck of a find. In fact, one of the best I've found in awhile.

The place has a minimalist feel to it, nothing fancy -- that I like. It shows they work on the food and service and not on just superficial things. The service, however, was speedy and attentive. Excellent. The wine list was absolutely fantastic, and the staff spent plenty of time describing the wide selection and offering advice. This place is staffed by people who really enjoy what they do, and what they serve. Perfect.

The menu had two parts -- one more traditional, old world, the other more innovative, new work. I went heretical and chose one part of the meal from each...

Both my friend and I chose the smoky sea risotto, which had a wonderful bonito flavour about it. The two lobs of urchin on top was a little limited, but it worked out well with the strongly-flavoured and perfectly-cooked risotto. This was a great start.

The main course I went traditional with the lesso misto -- the mixed boiled meats. Another simple dish that can be screwed up very easily. But this place did it with care and flavour. Each of the meats tasted wonderful, especially the tongue. I loved it. The assortment of vegetables made it acceptable to those of us who like some complementary stuff from the soil... My friend enjoyed the cacciucco -- the seafood stew. It looked amazing, and I was assured it was.

Dessert was fantastic. My friend chose the "cannoli" and I went with the sorbetto: the "buttermilk rhubarb" I thought tasted more like mango, but was excellent; the espresso was also excellent; the chocolate was just a bit too rich and decadent for me! Wow. And with a nice grappa (this place has an awesome list of post-dinner joys...) and espresso, we left at midnight more than happy. Wow, what a find...

As much as I hate to be in the middle of tourism hell, this is one place I would temper my bad temper for -- and that's saying plenty!

Food: A-
Atmosphere: A-
For Lone Diners: A- (*)

1 Comments:

At 1:14 PM, Blogger Labronicus said...

Hi I checked out in technorati.com who posted something about cacciucco, and I found your blog. I was interested because even if I live in London I did born in Livorno where the recipe come from. Glad you enjoyed the stew, if you wonder how to do it you can pop by my blog at labronicus.blogspot.com
Marco

 

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