Review: Locanda Verde

E&E were craving some good Italian and decided to hit up Locanda Verde for dinner. The restaurant, which is helmed by Chef Andrew Carmellini and replaces the failed Ago in the Greenwich Hotel, had been receiving some positive buzz and we were excited for some country-style Italian cooking. Calling on a Wednesday for a Sunday night reservation, we were able to score a table at 7:45 pm.

The menu is split into a few types of small plates (cicchetti and antipasti), pasta, secondi, and contorni. E&E, both fans of tapas-style meals, ordered several small plates and a single pasta to share, after our secondi of choice, fresh scallops with corn, was unavailable.

On the menu
Our first, and one of our favorite, dishes was a blue crab crostino with jalapeno. Sweet, fresh crab meat was piled onto perfect toothsome bread, spread liberally with tomato sauce and speckled with a few pieces of delicately cut jalapeno peppers. There was a generous portion of crab with no fillers. It was light and perfect for summer.

Next, we had some lamb meatball sliders, served with tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, and pickled cucumber. The lamb was flavorful, the brioche bun was moist and springy, and the tangy sauce cut the creamy richness of the ricotta perfectly. Our only comment was that the meatball itself felt a little dense, almost a little dry.

Tripe alla parmigiana followed - the tripe was served stew-style with a soft-fried duck egg, large chunks of carrots and celery simmered in a rich, spicy tomato broth. The overall effect was comforting and hearty, but E&E both felt that there was not enough actual tripe in the dish. While the chunks of tripe itself was soft and flavorful, it was easy to lose the tripe in the chunky vegetables - a shame because we loved the flavor of the dish itself.

The last of our small plates was a generous portion of sheep's milk ricotta, served with sea salt and herbs. It came in a sumptuous, creamy heap, drizzled with olive oil, sea salt, and herbs, notably rosemary, and was served with some excellent charred, chewy country-style bread. The ricotta was delicious, rich but airy, with a subtle tangy note from the sheep's milk.

Lastly, after a recommendation from our waitress, we ordered the special pasta that was on the menu for that night: a house-made linguine with lobster, rock shrimp, zucchini, and toasted garlic in a butter-saffron sauce. We would have been better served to go with a pasta on the regular menu - the dish was oddly flavorless and lacked depth, tasting of salty butter but little else. The noodles were limp and tasted as if they could have been from a box, though our server assured us that the pasta was fresh. The lobster meat was skimpy, with claw meat only, and contributed no flavor to the pasta - there was none of the distinctive sweet and briny lobster flavor that most lobster dishes bring. We were hugely disappointed.

A small consolation was that the side dish we ordered, rustic potatoes with garlic and parmigiano-reggiano, was sublime. The garlicky, cheesy sauce was delectable and potatoes themselves were excellent - crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. The flavor was rich, but not too much so, and they served as a happy distraction from the pasta.

The dessert menu had some definite potential, but both E&E were too full eat anything else unfortunately. We would have liked to have ended on a more positive note than the disappointing lobster pasta.



Wines:

White - the Terensuola Vermentino "Monetsagna" 2008 was light-to -medium bodied wine that was crisp and fruity, with a slight sweetness.

Red - the Alberice Refosco was medium-bodied, with a high acidity and hints of currant and plum. We had asked our server for a recommendation for a light red to enjoy with the pasta - we found this a little too heavy for the dish, although we liked the wine itself.

Overall, we had a pleasant experience at dinner and found their smaller plates to be mostly excellent. The restaurant itself is beautiful, both elegant and rustic, with dark wood tables, cozy leather benches, and some charming country touches, such as books and plants lining a faux bookcase in the dining area. Service was attentive and warm. Even though they had warned us that the dishes would come as they are ready, the pacing of the meal itself was a bit odd - we received almost all of our small plates within ten minutes, then after finishing, waited an additional 20-25 minutes for our main course. We would have liked to have had fewer small dishes arrive at one time, with less space in between the small plates and the pasta. We would love to give their other pastas a try (perhaps the white bolognese or the ravioli), as well as the scallops.

Rating: **

Locanda Verde, 377 Greenwich St., New York, NY 10013