A quick trip to NYC to visit some friends/my sister led me to Tribeca's Scalini Fedeli. What a delightful experience! Scalini features two options: the prix fixe menu where you select a primi, secondi, and dolce plates or the tasting menu. Tom & I opted for the prix fixe menu and it was definitely enough food.
The restaurant itself is beautiful, albeit a bit stuck in the 1980s. Beautiful green velvet covered chairs, pink roses with baby's breath at every table, waiters in tuxedos, wine bottles cramp the windowsill, classical music. Very Old School. Think the Soprano's Vesuvio's. The waiters were definitely from Italy and extremely charming.
The food was gorgeous and delightful.
The waiters first served a cute amuse bouche-- a porcini ravioli with a truffle foam. Fresh and as a sucker for truffles, delicious!
I started with the butternut agnolotti. It was served with a warm sage butter sauce, top
ped with amaretti & buffalo mozzarella. The mozzarella definitely elevated the agnolotti. Sage butter sauce has been done-- but the cheese brought it over the top. And it still tasted and felt light. Tom started with the restaurant's take on spaghetti arrabiata. It was served with mushrooms, black olives, and minced Spanish anchovy in a spicy tomato sauce. I thought it was a bit too heavy on the olives (but I don't like olives); Tom loved it.
Next I absolutely devoured the slow roasted duck breast and leg confit, smothered in black truffle sauce, gently set on a warm corn risotto. In the words of the venerable Gail Simmons, "Yum!" I thought the duck breast was delicious but the leg confit was out of this world-- absolutely the most tender duck I have ever had. Tom opted for the veal chop with orange and fennel dusted sweetbreads in a porcini-Dijon and green peppercorn sauce. The veal chop was crazy huge. I'd never seen veal prepared that way. The sauce was interesting. I didn't care for the sauce as it tasted kind of horseradishy and overpowering. But again, Tom loved it.
On to desserts. Another amuse bouche! The waiter served me a roasted pineapple with sorbet and Tom received a strawberry sauce with mascarpone sorbet. Both were bright and absolutely delicious. At this point I cannot eat another bite but the waiter insists on bringing dessert. Who can argue? I opt for an apple tart with caramel ice cream; Tom had a trio of gelato (which the waiter mercilessly mocked given the other fabulous options). Every bite was stupendous. I couldn't fit in the last bite (a pistachio biscotti) but it looked excellent.
The service was tremendous. The waiter was delightful and recommended some truly excellent wines. My favorite was a new one for me-- an amarone wine. I definitely got chocolate and vanilla on the nose. And it tasted like chocolate too. The waiter explained we should have gotten mocha so I was close! He explained how winemakers craft amarone--very interesting, they dry out the grapes until they are of a raisin consistency. Amarone has one of the highest alcohol content of all wines (15%). And he even gave us each a complimentary glass of moscat for dessert. I wanted to be his friend. He was awesome.
5 of 5 spoons plus a bronze spoon! A word on rating: the restaurant absolutely deserved five spoons. But it wasn't as good as Next and it was certainly better than Ardeo. So for every restaurant that reaches five spoons, I may also add a bronze, silver, or gold spoon (like Michelin stars).
Relatively expensive ($$$).
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