Maremma

I found Maremma on OpenTable.com as I was trying to get a last minute reservation. I was able to get a 7pm reservation last Saturday night so my expectations were pretty low. I was looking for a nice but casual restaurant serving southern Italian cuisine and this seemed to fit the bill.

Since one of our party was a bit late, we started with a drink at the bar and at 7pm, both the restaurant and the bar were still pretty empty. We had a nice conversation with the bartender who warned us that the edge of the bar had a beveled edge so glasses tend to fall towards the customers. We enjoyed a good laugh at the clumsiness of all those sods who spill drinks on themselves.

With our party finally complete, we were quickly seated in the upstairs dining room. Our server was friendly and seemed quite knowledgeable about the menu. However, she didn't have any specific recommendations outside of the Tuscan fries, which she said was the best she's ever had. We decided to go with the 4 course tasting menu, figuring it was a good way to sample Chef Casella's fare.

The first course was the chef's signature salad with pancetta and soft scrambled egg. Every salad seems to taste better with a bit of pancetta or bacon. The course was simple but tasty. It was like light brunch item, slightly warm and an excellent start to dinner.

Next came two pasta courses. One was the fusilli with tomato, bourbon, and Grana Padano cheese. This was a really good dish, probably my favorite of the night. You couldn't really taste the bourbon but the various ingredients fit together perfectly and gave you much more than your standard marinara.

For the third course, we had a choice of the skatefish or the skirt steak. I elected to have the steak. It was solid, cooked properly at the requested medium rare, but nothing memorable. My friend had the skatefish and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Finally, they brought out one of each of the desserts for us to sample. They were fine since we or mostly I finished them but I guess they weren't fine enough for me to remember them. After an espresso, we went back downstairs to the bar to wait for an old friend we had run into at the next table. New York is such a small city.

So, sitting at the bar, enjoying another bottle of wine, we managed to flip over a wine glass not once but twice! Yeah...those clumsy sods. Regardless of our lack of coordination, I'll definitely come back to Maremma. Southern Italian in a nice setting and at a reasonable price? Why wouldn't I?