It's Not a Cinch to Distill the Del Posto Spirit into a $35 Prix Fixe

 

        I swooned with gratitude when the adorable hedge fund founder at our table picked up the check for dinner that long ago night at Del Posto. Now NYC Summer Restaurant Week lures me back. It’s crowded and close in the bleacher seats of Del Posto’s Enoteca, but we’re instantly jollied out of any claustrophobia, not to mention congential paranoia, by the charm of our waiter, his unfakeable Italianescence, his endearing candor. “We came for the $35 dinner,” I blurt out.  “It’s not on the menu, I see only a $52 prix fixe.” 

        “It’s the same four courses,” he says. “Except you get one taste of pasta for the table to share, not two, so you have to agree on which pasta.  Do you think you can agree?”

        “Anything but gnocchi,” says Captain Bob.

        Bypassing the orecchiette with lamb sauce, pasta e fagioli and spaghetti rotti with lobster, I proposed: “Garganelli di ragu Bolognese.”

        “What’s that?” asks Susan.

        “A wonderful homemade pasta,” says Bob.

        So we have agreed.

        It can’t be easy for a chef, even a trusted veteran like Mark Ladner, to put together four courses for $35 without breaking the bank in a grand house with its noise-muffling oriental carpets, where even after a recessionary stimulus reduction, the "grand tasting" starts at $125 (from $175)  and the twenty course exercise is $175 (previously $250).

        “Can you explain the salmon tart?” I ask

        “I shall not say anything, as I might lose my job,” he replies.

        “What about the “'Roman pork ribs?'”

        “I must tell you they are made with the aperitivo Cynar, and Coca Cola to balance the bitterness of the Cynar,” he says.

        “That does not sound very Roman,” I mutter. 

        "I think it is Texan."

 
        Give that bread basket a prize... and one for Chef Ladner’s marvelous calamari. Photo: Steven Richter

        Seriously grand wine goblets for our $9 Rosso Piceno and a $12 Aglianico. Three little amusements for each of us and the house’s spectacular basket of five warmed breads – mini baguettes, bread sticks, whole grain rolls, an olive-studded twist and an irresistible herbed softee. Lardo and butter under small domes. Such Del Posto amenities are luxurious even for a $52 tasting. Broccoli rabe with mozzarella is weirdly pleasant and my octopus terrine with chips is good enough, but the marvelous calamari fritti in its delicate rice flour batter served with little bits of hot cherry peppers and capers in a vinaigrette is unlike any I’ve ever tasted (in a lifetime of rarely ignoring calamari fritti on any menu).

 

        Bits and pieces of halibut –“Do you think it’s someone else’s leftover’s?” Susan asks – are actually delicious poached in garlic broth with a mustardy vinaigrette. (And they are leftovers, sort of, I discover when I question the chef. “We use the tail and head and save the filets for the main dining room,” Ladner says.) And so many slices of steak, very impressive. ("Actually short rib, cooked briefly, a lot of bang for the buck," he continues.) No stinting on ribs either, enough to build a log cabin dog house with fried artichokes alla giudia (as they do them in the Roman ghetto). I might appreciate the fine sweet and sour duck confit less if I’d spent $25 for them on the Enoteca a la carte menu, but as a pause in this $35 ramble, Bingo! 

        Now when the waiter confesses that his mouth does not like the texture of olive oil-roasted dates, we listen, ending our evening with crushed local strawberries on ricotta tortino, a moodily dark chocolate cake with stracciatella gelato, and the summer sundae of plum sorbet and fresh berries. I’m leaving out the breaded fried peaches in vincotto because frying a peach is not what I'd ever recommend.

        I’d heard rumors that Del Posto does a $35 dinner in the Enoteca all year round and the chef says that’s true. But no one will tell you. And the menu is too discreet to mention it. So you just have to ask. 85 Tenth Avenue at 16th Street. 212 487 8090.

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