Restaurant Review: I Cavallini | The New Yorker

As at 4 Horsemen, the place an oeuf mayonnaise is zebra-striped with squid ink and humble beans are handled like valuable gems, Curtola trusts his diners to enterprise past apparent crowd-pleasers. I used to be impressed to see what number of tables round me had ordered the nervetti, a relaxing salad of beef tendons, lower sliver-thin, with shaved white onions and pickled chive blossoms. To my palate, the dish isn’t solely profitable—tendons are a textural ingredient greater than a flavorful one, slippery and jiggly-wiggly, so over all it tastes like a scoop of marinated onions destined for an Italian sub—however people appeared to be thrilled by it anyway. The pleasures of chewy textures are on higher show in a shallow bowl of trofie, teeny-tiny handmade pasta twists cooked to a stunning springiness. They’re tossed in a shocking-green pesto, which is often herbaceous and tacky and has the unmistakable buttery-soft taste armature of pounded pine nuts. Overlook caviar, neglect truffles: true luxurious is good and resinous Italian pinoli, an more and more valuable crop that may run to greater than 100 {dollars} a kilo.These dreamy pine nuts present up once more, entire this time, and paired with golden raisins in an agrodolce that adheres a fried fillet of eel to a chunk of crackly toast. It summons Sicily, but additionally the Apennines, and Venice, and a bit of little bit of China, too, within the ethereal manner the eel is fried. I used to be skeptical of the addition of unshelled mussels to a basic panzanella, then virtually instantly conceded: towards a juicy mess of tomatoes and vinegar and fried bread, the little tender blobs of meat practically—however, crucially, don’t fairly—disappear, their toothsome softness virtually mushroom-like. A special type of shock got here with the farfallone, big pasta bow ties which might be tossed in an amber-dark chile butter with batons of smoky pancetta the scale of a pinky finger and a beneficiant bathe of bread crumbs. I felt an sudden swell of emotion at first chew, the pink-tinged melancholy of reminiscence, then realized: someway, inexplicably, the dish had evoked the exact salty-sweet savoriness of a can of SpaghettiOs with sliced franks, however lusciously advanced and tingly with warmth. (To be very clear, in my ebook the resemblance is a marvellous plus.) Sip one thing from the in depth listing of pure wines—a gravelly Dolcetto from a teen-genius winemaker, perhaps—or a properly balanced cocktail, boozy or zero-proof, and really feel, for as soon as, comfortable to have grown up.Italian pine nuts are the star of trofie with pesto.Like its across-the-street sibling, I Cavallini wears its coolness with complete disregard, giving off not a whiff of snobbery or pretension: its charisma appears arisen, not cultivated. At each locations, getting within the door is usually a problem—I’ll be trustworthy, I haven’t made it previous the gates of the 4 Horsemen in years, however I had nice luck at I Cavallini displaying up at 5 P.M. as a walk-in. When you’re in, a meal is clean and unhurried, with heat service overseen by the companion and managing director Amanda McMillan. The room, woodsy and rustico, with checkerboard flooring and occasional Scandi thrives, feels constructed for dwelling in and for poking round, a please-touch museum of suave objects and accents. Even the wine lists are pleasant bodily specimens, sure in corrugated cardboard in homage to the nineteen-seventies Italian cookbook collection In Bocca, and découpaged with psychedelic illustrations from the books. Nonetheless, nevertheless gemütlich the vibe, there’s no denying that you’re in a standing restaurant—celebrities! Wait lists!—and, inevitably, the kitchen lately launched a standing dish: an unlimited and elegant rib eye, on the bone, girded with a ribbon of pearlescent fats and topped with a melting scoop of caramelized-onion butter. Only some can be found every night, however should you aren’t fortunate sufficient to land one there’s loads of comfort to be discovered within the rooster. It’s a heritage half-bird pan-roasted and served in items, with the leg nonetheless hooked up to the foot, its toes elegantly flexed, high-kicking off the sting of the plate—the ol’ razzle-dazzle, exquisitely scented in garlic. ♦