The second welcome is a second intimation of aristocracy: on the wall, a meticulous plotting of Piemonte’s House of Savoy, the proud family tree with its royal twiglet, Victor Emmanuel II, first ruler of united Italy.  For Barbetta is dedicated to the hearty gastronomic joys of Piemonte, where Barbetta’s founder, Sebastian Maioglio, was born and where his family still owns land… a fertile truffle ground and a fruitful vineyard.

        In the cloakroom there is ancient harpsichord, “an antique,” says Gabriele, bowing.  “I’m an antique too.”  He giggles.  Beyond is a sentimental translation of eighteenth century: ash-mellowed boiserie, crushed rose velvet, carved palazzo-style bar stools, gilded sconces and lacquered columns leading to a dowager dining room of an old European hotel, chairs upholstered in brocade, not a vinylized parody, but fabric to fade and fray, and shirred velvet curtains shredding now with aristocratic arrogance.  In season, a brave garden, defiantly wisteria’d and grape abored with marble nubiles and a tiny baroque pool.  On the menu is a reproduction of an eighteenth-century Monopoly, “The Game of the Goose,” with an inn at Box 19, a well at Box 31, jail at Box 52 and death at Box 58. Dice and chips are available on request, but Barbetta fans—the Davids (Susskind and Merrick), Lauren Bacall, Kermit Bloomgarden, Helen Hayes, Andre Kostelanetz, Yuhudi Menuhin, opera lights, expatriate Italians and Hungarians, expense account lunchers—are too busy playing other games of chance.

        Haute Italian is much too dependent on borrowings from France.  And Barbetta’s menu is more haute than it ought to be.  New York doesn’t need another source of mousse of pâté or escargots bourguignon.  New York weeps for the infinite variety of Italian regional cooking.  And within its Frenchified framework, Barbetta, bravo, does come through with a sampling from the Piemontese.

        There is risotto, of course, the grains crisply al dente,  The rice of Piemonte was so prized in the eighteenth century, it was illegal to take seed grain out of the country (Thomas Jefferson smuggled some out anyway in 1787).  The Piemontese are mountaineers, but Turin’s court cuisine tempers the hearty simplicity of mountain cooking.  At Barbetta, the solid bollito misto, a variable boiled feast, might include beef, chicken, sausage, veal, calf’s head and homely carrots and cabbage, served from a silver wagon with the traditional green sauce.  There is game in season: pheasant ($6.75), forest quail with cornmeal polenta ($7.50), wild hare ($6.25), venison ($6.75).  And throughout the year there is bagna cauda, literally a hot bath: crushed anchovy butter spiked with garlic in olive oil served bubbling in a crock with raw vegetables for dipping ($2.75 à la carte).  Bagna cauda is an imperative in Piedmonte at Halloween, a time of family homecomings, roasted chestnuts, fasting for All Souls’ Day.  The Maioglio vineyard wines are here too, up to $9 a bottle now on a wine list of celebrated depth.  There is a Barolo, greatest of the Piemontese reds, full-bodied and smooth; Barbaresco, full and flinty; and Gattinara, big, with a sensual bouquet.

        Cleopatra is the family’s veteran truffle hound, an irrepressible dowager of seven and a half.  She summers in Southampton, sees the spring in Manhattan… digging madly in Central Park. So far, no sign of a truffle.  Each fall Cleopatra is shipped to Maioglio home turf, where she sleuths for the sacred mystery fungus. The Piemonte truffle is white, stronger in flavor than the black truffles of France, and grows in the underroots of oaks, chestnuts, willows, hazels, and poplars, but only at a certain altitude.  There is a truffle academy for dogs in Piemonte, and fall is the season.  Barbetta gets shipments three or four times a week.  The first batch arrived October 7 and was riddled with flawed diamonds, a disaster at $78.75 the pound.  The truffles are served with game, shaved atop pasta, scattered over insalata di carne cruda (a delicate veal tartar).  The benediction of truffle runs $2 to $3 this season, depending upon how soon you say “Basta… enough.”  Even at that price, there is no profit in the fragile white taste-provoker.  But it is a Barbetta tradition and crucial to the fonduta, kin to fondue but different: cornstarch, milk and egg yolks are added to the melted fontina…no wine or brandy…the bread comes already dipped and the simmering cheese wears a light coverlet of paper-thin truffle slices.

        What a grand and noble Piemontese salute…if only it worked!

        Unfortunately, the service at Barbetta has rarely matched the sophistication and intelligence of its designer’s grand plan, and the food is wildly uneven.  From three lunches and a dinner I recall: soggy breadsticks; a favorite dish, vitello tonne—prized for the pleasant shock of veal blanketed in creamy tuna—here tough and unpleasantly sharp to the taste; a pitiful pizetta Napoletana, simply a slather of tomato sauce crossed with anchovies on half an English muffin; thick, undistinguished mayonnaise and a woeful tinted green sauce; indifferent desserts; a mousse that tasted like warm chocolate ice cream, minus custard and fruit; the dazzling beauty of a whole orange in candied orange peel spoiled by sitting too long at room temperature.

        The antipasto cart is a mixed blessing.  More imaginative than most—with eel, tuna, deviled egg, a dense liver mousse in aspic, tomato stuffed with rice, refreshing celery rémoulade plus the usual olives and salami and canned artichoke.  But too many of the offerings taste weary, neglected. The rolling cart is not wheeled to the table for selection.  Not even when requested. The captain said yes… the waiter forgot, or refused… and only when the captain noticed the waiter’s offered sampling left untouched (prudence, not criticism, on my part) did he insist the cart be brought for a second selection. At the same time, soft shell crabs were excellent; there was a fine, light, beautifully poached cold bass, handsomely decorated, snappily served with a carved lemon basket of parsley, excellent cannelloni alla Romana with a mild filling, bits of tomato and a fluffy soufflé like topping, beautiful greens skillfully dressed (flawed by rusty lettuce leaves) and a fine gateau St. Honoré, The espresso is the real machine pressed brew.

        At dinner we were second-class citizens: two women, dining alone. I felt invisible. The captain simply could not be bothered. He stood presenting his profile or fussed silkily over nearby couples. Finally a waiter took pity and came for our order.  I ordered the grand antipasto Piemontese, “served from the cart” ($2.95).  He shook his head, clicking his tongue, “tsk tsk.” “You don’t want that,” he said, “Try the tortellini alla penna.”  I insisted.  He shook his head again.  “Listen to me,” he said.  “Tortellini.”  We devoured a shared order ($3 plus $1 for sharing).  The tiny pasta hats were rich and tender, smothered in cream, irresistible even though the Parmesan filling was slightly sharp and dry.  Squab in casserole with small white onions ($6.25) was stunning but regrettably flawed: lovely fork-tender veal, little finger sausages, bits of zucchini and a square of polenta—fried and sprinkled with sugar.  But the calf’s liver was leathery, tough and black and the sweetbreads were strangely chewy.  Certain morsels tasted refried… a frito-misto sin in my book.  But even in my cocoon of unlove and neglect, I felt that each flawed dish was only a step or two from excellence.  Does the menu ask too much of the kitchen?  Or is the kitchen simply demoralized beyond caring?

        Perhaps Barbetta is an impossible dream.

        Decades ago it was a rustic little ristorante, plain and inexpensive, a neighborhood hangout for Toscanini, Caruso and Ezio Pinza.  When Sebastian Maioglio became ill in 1959, the house was closed.  Then daughter Laura, a Bryn Mawr art history major, announced that she would take over.  She restyled Barbetta in the haute Piemontese image.  Miss Maioglio is a classy blonde with classy ideas.  She has won the respect of serious food men for her grand scheme and her stubborn devotion.  A James Bond stunner in a Pucci ”tennis” dress with non-stop legs and a Hampton tan, her presence is dazzling. And her temper is legendary. The turnover of chefs is high. There is no great pool of haute Italian cooking talent in Manhattan as there is for French, and the new immigration laws are restrictive. Italian-Americans must be taught to cook Piemontese.  When they are good, Barbetta is good; when they are bad…

        Now there is a new presence at Barbetta.  Andre Urbini, small, tense, trained in the Four Seasons contemporary snap, is the new director.  Perhaps he can restore a measure of spirit and pride to the Barbetta ranks.  Sadly, the erratic Gabriele has been banished backstage.  He still has his bed and does his chores, but he terrorized cabbies by hailing taxis with his body planted mid-street… and insulted too many customers by scolding them in French, Italian, English, and Yiddish.

        Barbetta provokes more anger than many lesser houses.  We are harshest with a brilliant child that disappoints and indulgent with a sweet and hopeless dolt. Barbetta has the head. I still have the feeling it may find the heart.

* Gabriele simply appeared one day seven years ago.  He had been a sacristan, he said, but now had nowhere to go.  He offered to sew for his room and board.  The Maioglios gave him a bed, a pot to brew his vegetarian stews in, a uniform and the gate to guard.

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