day after xmas

locanda verde / 377 greenwich st / nyc / (212) 925-3797 / dinner mon-sun, 5:30-11p; breakfast mon-fri, 8-11a, sat-sun, 8-10a; lunch 11:30a-3p / reservations recommended / dinner ~$50-60 per person (no wine) / 2 1/2 stars out of 4

it’s not often that hyped restaurants live up to the hype. especially restaurants that are minorly owned by celebrities. in this case, locanda verde, part-owned by robert deniro (whose previous restaurant in the same space, ago, folded), lives up to the food hype, but falls short in other ways that prevent it from being the whole package.

i read up on the restaurant shortly before we walked over, and let me just say that a lot of the yelpers who reviewed this place are a little…well, let’s be clear here: robert deniro may have invested in the restaurant, but he does not run this restaurant. when writing your review, should you feel a need to address a specific person, try the chef, the sous chef, the pastry chef, the manager, etc – not the investor who just wants a return on said investment. also, please employ correct spelling, and do not address anyone as your friend or “buddy” unless they are, indeed, your friend or buddy.

on to the food, which was quite good. it’s slightly better than craigie, if i say so myself. there are not many good italian restaurants that are modern, and in any case, italian restaurants structure meals differently than the typical american meal. in any nouveau american restaurant, you’re likely to do the traditional appetizer, entree, dessert sequence. in an italian restaurant, dinner is a longer affair, encompassing primi (appetizers), secondi (pastas), entrees, and dessert. when i went to babbo with shirley and lilly, we did the whole four courses: two appetizers, three pastas, two entrees, three desserts. not even a “full” four-course dinner for each of us and we were totally stuffed. so in that sense, it was a good idea not to do the full four courses at locanda verde – we still ordered enough food to be quite pleasantly full.

for appetizers, we shared the sheeps milk ricotta with grilled bread; marinated beets with goat cheese and gorgonzola; steak tartare with crispy guanciale; and lamb meatball sliders. the ricotta is almost worth the hype – you’ve certainly never had ricotta like this, and i’m not even sure what they did to it. it’s silky, creamy, almost like mascarpone, with just a tad too much richness, actually. maybe they strained it, then whizzed it in a food processor? i wanted to believe that it was just made in a way that produced silky, creamy ricotta, but i know better. points off, too, for not providing the correct amount of bread for the amount of ricotta served. the marinated beets were good as well, especially with gorgonzola – not a combination i’d had before. the lamb meatball sliders were good, but not particularly memorable. however, the steak tartare was absolutely fantastic – perfect texture, perfect temperature, perfect seasoning, with a bit of tang from some scallion or cilantro or something like that. i like steak tartare and have had it in a few places, and this was the best of the bunch. it was completely unadorned – no cornichons, mustards, fig jams, etc – and it needed no adornments.

for entrees, i had the fennel glazed duck with tuscan kale, yukons, and concord grape conserve. this was nearly as fabulous as the steak tartare. it was perfectly cooked, but more importantly, the combination of flavors was stellar. the fennel was understated, coming through with bites of duck, while the duck jus saturated the kale. i was surprised by the concord grape conserve, though – you hear about these mythical ingredients that tie a dish together, but you rarely encounter them. this was one of those mythical ingredients, beyond tasting like someone had put a lot of love into it. i think it was cooked in some sort of red wine reduction, and it was deliciously juicy, a textural contrast to the solidity of the rest of the dish. i do wish there had been a few more potatoes – these days, restaurant potatoes are so deliciously potato-y in flavor, yet dwindling in number on the plate. i don’t really understand this fear of starches, and i think everyone should just get over it – as long as you balance starches, proteins, veg, and fat, it’s ok. really, put the starch back on the plate already.

my parents had the fire-roasted garlic chicken for two and i grabbed a bite of it before i was irrevocably stuffed. it was delicious – and somehow, so much more vivid than any chicken i’ve had recently at a restaurant. it wasn’t boring, it wasn’t mild – it was every bit as daring as any other entree at the restaurant. perhaps it lacked nuance of the duck, but its vibrancy made up for that – just depends on what you’re in the mood for. my sister had the veal shank (a special that evening) and man, was that thing huge. you don’t think of veal having such large shanks – but apparently they do.

my parents and i shared the maple budino with candied pecans, cranberry sorbetto for dessert. this was a bit of a letdown, actually – i love pot de creme, i love maple, and it should have been a home run, especially with the cranberry sorbet to cut the intensity of the maple. but somehow it wasn’t – it was too sweet, too much of a confection.

all in all, the food was great – a little uneven, and nothing was a home run, but with flashes of actual brilliance. unfortunately, the service and decor were enough of a distraction that the overall dining experience rates lower than at restaurants like craigie, babbo, and alinea – all restaurants which i would go to first over locanda verde. notes on the negatives are below:

service: i am so tired of pretentious service. to all restaurants i may patronize in the future: i am not a rube about food and i am going to not only behave, but tip well. i am not an overly demanding or picky customer. so stop kicking my chair as you walk by, acting as if i know nothing about food, being inattentive, and pretending that we’re hicks. please remember who ordered what, too – i would understand if the restaurant were totally in the weeds, but that was not the case when i was there. in short: don’t be a jerk, because that’s just going to make me want to be a jerk back.

on the decor – well, it’s all oddly mismatched, and not in a good way. it’s part pub, with piney wood paneling and lots of ugly mirrors, but has the arched plaster ceilings and chandeliers of a more ritzy restaurant. the back of the restaurant is a more family-style area with long tables, whereas the front is more slick and modern with shiny black tables and a bar. the height of the space is nice and airy, but i would have preferred an interior without the occasional broken mirror. further about these mirrors, which line the back and side walls of the room – they are obviously a relic of the previous restaurant’s interior, which presumably had booths that matched the mirrors. now that those booths are gone, the mirrors seem out of place.