Food + Dining

Parla Italiano?

By Pat Tanner

We New Jerseyans certainly love our Italian restaurants. So it comes as no surprise that these two entries were greeted with open arms when they arrived on an already crowded scene. That they continue to thrive--each amassing a loyal following--stands testament to their substantial strengths and individual charms.

Sette Cucina Italiana

* * *
7 Mine Brook Rd., Bernardsville
908.502.5054, settecucina.com

It’s gratifying when the second generation of a restaurant family continues the tradition — even more so when the youngsters branch out to forge their own identities. Such is the case with Allan Russo’s boutique (28-seat) b.y.o. restaurant. Its roots are in Somerville, where Russo’s father is the eponymous owner/chef of the venerable da Filippo. With its modern Italian menu and refined villa décor, Sette (i.e., No. 7) does the family proud.

Russo, 31, runs the kitchen while his wife, Loredana, oversees the dining room. Expect to be greeted by both, since each makes a point of stopping by every table. (A valuable lesson learned from the elder Russo.) Russo the Younger’s fare is the ideal amalgam of traditional and modern, straightforward and tweaked, but always starts with first-rate ingredients. How else could a dish as simple as cod baked in parchment succeed so well? The fish is strewn with fresh rosemary twigs, and tucked alongside are few adornments — say, small potatoes and bits of fresh plum tomato and zucchini, with Italian-style sweet-and-sour red cabbage as accompaniment.

Even the more lush, complicated dishes impress. Pork loin rolls stuffed with fontina and pancetta and baked in truffle cream sauce could easily be clunky and overly rich. With everything in balance, the

dish is anything but. Risotto with nubbins of superb house-made sausage also shows a deft hand at work, with mere hints of saffron and white truffle oil augmenting textbook-perfect rice.

Other standouts include thin-cut New York strip, lightly marinated and charcoal-grilled to perfection, and swordfish given the same stellar treatment and paired with shrimp. Among starters, smoked Norwegian salmon rises above the usual, again because of Russo’s simple but spot-on adornments. Baked snails are doused with the classical herb butter, but not the usual overabundance of garlic. Handmade pastas, such as unadorned ravioli with a light plum tomato sauce, are another feature, although I think fish and meat represent Russo’s forte. The restaurant makes its own dinner rolls (they resemble crullers in shape and soft pretzels in taste), as well as desserts, among which a simple plate of biscotti ranks above the rest.

The diminutive size of this gleaming jewel box of a restaurant presents challenges that can detract from an otherwise ideal dining experience. Servers are pleasant and well-intentioned, but they seem tentative (in some cases due to language barriers) or sometimes stumble. We had to ask several times for the bubbly we had brought to be retrieved from the kitchen. Other times, staff is simply overwhelmed in navigating the limited space between tables. My party of six had already been squeezed into a tiny corner when the staff impinged further on our space with not one, but two standing wine coolers for the adjoining table. Noise, too, is a problem. While the decor is strikingly handsome, sound reverberates off the granite floors, gilt-edged mirrors, etched glass panels, and golden pressed-tin ceiling. But that sound is of immensely happy diners — me included.

Grato

* *
2230 Rte. 10 West, Morris Plains
973.267.4006, gratorestaurant.com

Grato (“grateful” in Italian) — the Harvest Restaurant Group’s latest entry in an eclectic stew that includes 3 West, Ciao, and Huntley Taverne — is under the expert direction of chef John Schaefer, formerly of New York’s Irving Mill and Gramercy Tavern. A satisfying meal can be composed from just the top half of the menu, which offers bruschetta, salumi, antipasti, salads, and pizzas from the wood-fired oven. My table shared a tasty four-cheese pizza with cherry tomatoes and fresh sage, a colorful beet salad with goat cheese and house-made croutons, and grilled baby octopus that rises above the expected, being tossed, along with soft potatoes and fennel, in sprightly lemon vinaigrette.

It is not uncommon to suffer a slight letdown with entrees when a meal starts out so promising. In this case, it was a decided thunk. It should be a selling point when pastas are made in-house, but they are the downfall of both the bucatini in tomato sauce with veal and ricotta meatballs and the penne and shrimp puttanesca. In both instances, the pasta suffers from a flabby outer shell and hard inner core. Worse, they absorb so much sauce that both dishes are dry. Yet other basics are in place: The shrimp is toothy; the meatballs tasty and well-textured.

Non-pasta entrees suffer, too. Grilled flatiron steak is well-priced and nicely accompanied by roasted potatoes and salsa verde, but the steak itself lacks beefiness. The flavor of a halibut special with fava beans is muted, too. Dessert continues the letdown. Warm chocolate dipping sauce is surrounded by miniature versions of cannoli and classic Italian cookies, all of which are unforgivably limp. These flaws are easily correctable with more careful execution — at which point this restaurant could become the Harvest Group’s pièce de résistance.