Friday, February 06, 2009
Osteria Flirts With Perfection
By Anne Hillerman For the Albuquerque Journal

Santa Fe’s charming Osteria d’Assisi takes a fresh, Mediterranean approach to food.

The Osteria greets you with the perfume of long-simmered sauces and perhaps a subtle hit of garlic. We charmed the hostess into seating our party of four at a table directly in front of the fireplace — ask for this table when you eat here. It’s quiet and gives you a nice view of the front room, one of four dining areas, if you count the upstairs room often used for private parties. The atmosphere is elegant in an understated way. You won’t feel uncomfortable in jeans for dinner here, but the food is definitely dressed-up.

The Osteria d’Assisi opened in 1995, transforming an old house across from the Federal Courthouse in downtown Santa Fe into a sweet little restaurant. There’s parking in a lot next door. In three months or so, guests will be able eat on the front patio, but in the meantime, there’s lots of room inside.

The menu features a fresh fish and pasta of the day along with other tasty specials — and the regular offerings such as pizza, salad beef, veal and lamb. Desserts are good, too.

We started our dinner with an order of calamari, plenty for the four of us without becoming a meal in itself. The squid was mostly rings with a few pieces of tentacle, lightly coated and quickly fried. It was light and yummy with none of the greasy, awkward chewiness that plagues this appetizer at less-skilled restaurants. The marinara sauce that came with it had a fresh tomato flavor, as if they’d fixed it just for us.

We sampled a cup of the wild mushroom soup. Unlike the usual cream preparations, these mushroom strips floated in a tomato broth that had some nice spiciness to it. I’d like a bowl of this for lunch.

I tried one of the nightly specials, the fresh grouper with an orange salsa. The fish was first-rate and cooked to perfection. The orange salsa with sliced green olives had a touch of sweet, a smidgen of saltiness and made the fish even better. Simple steamed fresh cauliflower and broccoli florets dressed with a kiss of butter, and tomato rice finished the plate. Lovely.

The “Involtini,” thinly-sliced veal, stuffed, rolled and filled with fresh spinach, was equally wonderful. The Marsala wine sauce that completed the meat gave it considerable sophistication — a little too sweet, maybe, but that’s only quibbling.

The pasta, a mix of crab and lobster packed into squares of ravioli dough, was also delicious. The kitchen left the ravioli noodles slightly chewier than I like them, but they offered a pleasantly light touch with the rich sauce. This is a satisfying way to fortify yourself for a cold evening.

My friend had the “rollantini di melanzane,” or eggplant rolls, usually an appetizer, for her dinner. The dish featured large slices of eggplant shaped into tubes around a filling of rich ricotta, then cooked until it becomes melt-in-your-mouth soft. The gently flavored tomato sauce allowed the eggplant to hold its own, and a finish with Parmesan cheese provided another reason to enjoy.

Desserts are worth saving room for. The lemon pie got a big thumbs up — I was sorry I’d agreed to share. It had a wonderful just-sweet-enough-filling with a fresh lemon flavor, a topping of light meringue with a beautiful slight tan, and a flaky crust. The tiramisu here is the cake-like kind, prepared with layers of mascarpone cheese and a generous amount of espresso. It arrived garnished with swirls of chocolate syrup. The coconut pie was like a macaroon in a biscotti-like crust –– a great change from the standard, cloying, cream-filled pies. It went well with the freshly brewed coffee and espresso we had to finish the meal.

Like the food, our server, Aviva, was first-rate. She knew the menu well, kept an eye on us without being intrusive, and anticipated our needs.

My only disappointment at the Osteria is the bread. It’s not bad, just average and kind of flat-tasting. In a place were everything else rises above the median, that’s disappointing.

Our dinner for four, without alcohol, was $129.25 without tax.