February 3, 2010

return to colicchio and sons

I went back to Colicchio and Sons last night and ate in the tap room. The tap room is the front room, no reservations, and a smaller menu. Actually, not only is the menu smaller, it is much less expensive. They continue to change the menu in the tap room too. The difference is big.

There is more of a casual feel in the front room that just seem to work better. The grown up stuffy feel in the back room, imho, is not what people are looking for these days. The space is so big but perhaps Colicchio should think about turning 80% of the space into a tap room and leave 20% for a fancier menu. Flip what is happening in there now.

We shared everything. Starting with a whipped ricotta served with a few roasted vegetables that had just a hint of honey. With that we had a roasted onion pizza made in the wood fired oven. Really delicious pizza, crusty on the sides and soft and thin in the middle. The restaurant does pizza night on Sundays. Might have to check it out.

For our second course we split a scrumptious baked pasta dish. Zitti loaded with a rich gooey cheese and pieces of crispy sausage and black kale. Excellent. We also had a piece of branzino. Crispy skin, a tad undercooked but the right size portion with a little bit of a spicy red sauce on the side.

Dessert was fun. Tubular deep fried cream filled donuts sprinkled with sugar and served hot. On the side was a gelato ( can't remember the flavor ) but we also had a scoop of caramel butterscotch gelato which was really delicious. But the best was the rosemary gelato. The intense flavor of the rosemary was really different and fantastic.

A really nice evening. Good food. Not the easiest location, 15th and 10th but I do like the atmosphere…particularly the tap room.