Italian Saturday Night

We continue to be laggard in our duties to you, Loyal Audience, but rest assured you have strong and persistent allies. The Country Lady is determined to push us into regular blog-ness. She claims she is hoping to use this meager column to communicate with others. Perhaps it is a terrorist plot or a reach for world domination…

Nevertheless, secretly we fear the Country Lady so we are trying to habitualize ourselves to a regular schedule and expect that once we do, you, Fearless Reader, will be cowed into replying to the Country Lady. Therefore, here is a brief installment on a surprisingly lovely restaurant in which the A-Girl and I dined one Saturday night recently.

It is called Morandi, and it is just east of Seventh Avenue at the intersection of Charles Street and Waverly Place in the Village. It looks, on a Saturday night, exactly like the sort of place one should avoid – filled with thin blonde women with enormously chic handbags and very large sunglasses even though it is dark outside all looking at men with hair gelled into unbelievable positions and wearing dress shirts without ties.

At the same time, we were hungry, everything else interesting in the Village was full with outrageously long waiting lists and Morandi looks like it could be as Italian as the name sounds. Now, not Italian in that Bar Pitti and its lower priced neighbor sort of way nor Italian like Cipriani on West Broadway; those are too yellow, as if one is eating in a lemon. No this is Italian in a bleached wood, tile and touches of red sort of way, in a Keith McNally sort of way – authentic without overwhelming, good food without making us think, and efficient service regardless of how many blondes in the room.

True to form, we were seated in only half a drink at the bar’s time. As hungry as we were, we began to order immediately and fell upon the Fritto Misto and the Olive Ascolana to start. With that the A-Girl ordered a bottle of Negro Rose which was not bad, but did not have the body she was searching. However, at $30, we had no complaints.

The Fritto Misto was delightful, well fried, light and crunchy without any oily feeling. The mix of seafood was inspiring and made us think that the hot NYC night had transformed into a Roman one. The A-Girl was also disappointed in the Ascolana. We were not, but we will eat almost anything that is fried and these had the benefit of being salty with sausage wrapped inside.

From there we plunged into (under the A-Girl’s guidance) a Pasta Sarde that included pine nuts, raisins and sardines – delectable – and Vitello Tonnato, a great favorite of mine normally but which disappointed this evening mostly for its size but also for the consistency of the Tonnato sauce. We found it just too dry. Washing this down, we ordered a bottle of Savuto, a southern Italian red which was more pleasing to the A-Girl for its body and earthiness than the first wine. At $38 a bottle, we thought it was perfectly drinkable as well.

Dessert was pleasing, despite my preconceptions of austere Italian desserts (thank you, Keith). We had a fruit Granita and a Frittelle di Ricotta, little ricotta fritters dusted with cinnamon sugar. We are in sort of a Granita-mood lately, even making it at home and found this one to be perfect. It was just piquant enough with a slight sugary after taste, and as for the Frittelle, see above re: fried things, we love them.

All in all, Morandi is worth the effort for the effort that McNally has made. Will it last like Odeon, who knows, but for the time being, with that big outdoor area and the front windows rolled up, it is worth a summer trip.

buon appetito