L’Impero – 45 Tudor City Place (bet. 42nd and 41st St.), (212) 599-5045
Yesterday one of my favorite dining companions, Zack, and I went to L’Impero for its “Domenica Rustica” (translation: “Rustic Sunday”) Prix Fixe 4-course dinner for $42: a deal that we felt we had to investigate following Frank Bruni’s recent re-review of L’Impero and Alto when Michael White took over as Executive Chef, replacing Scott Conant. Plus, we use any excuse to try out a lovely restaurant (in this case we pretended we were wholeheartedly celebrating Veteran’s Day).
Let me begin with the decor. Ever since reading Bruni’s description of L’Impero’s interior as “evoking the upholstered interior of a very large coffin,” it was difficult for me to see it as anything but, especially with the effect of all the glowing candlelight. Lucky for me, Zack supplanted that imagery with the suggestion that L’Impero’s decor is reminiscent of the dining room of a luxurious ocean-liner due to the classic American sconces along the walls and what we agreed looked like “catering hall” chairs. Almost no windows added to the feeling of floating somewhere on the vast seas. Is a cruise ship really better than a coffin, you ask? Hmmm, maybe not. Then there were a few things that seemed out of place: the small tealights perched atop skinny black metal rods clipped onto the edge of some of the tables, the nubby, 1970’s-esque, dark brown booth/loveseat-type alternatives to the “catering hall” chairs, and the six toilet paper rolls lined up vertically from ceiling to floor in the bathroom.
The meal began with a warm slice of crusty bread and, as part of the 4-course meal, a bowl of olives, Parmigiano cheese, and slices of cured meat. The olives were small, pitted, and tasted strongly of the rosemary and orange peel in which they were marinated. The slices of meat (not certain if it was sopressata or something else) were salty, fatty, and delicious, but nothing special. The cheese was fantastic. It was crumblier than I’m used to, but less salty while still maintaining the typical sharpness of Parmigiano cheese.
We asked the waiter to recommend a light, red wine that was versatile and in the $50 range (the cheapest bottle of red was $45, a little steeper than we’re used to). He told us he would send the sommelier over to assist us. It took far longer than it should have for him to come over and in the meantime, no one had taken our order (although we did get more bread). When the sommelier did finally get around to coming to us, he spouted some completely inappropriate joke about the “Michael Jackson” of wines since the red wine he recommended was trying to be white (“Um, since when was Michael Jackson Native American?” Zack wondered aloud). At least the wine he recommended was a pleasantly fruity, light red from Valle d’Aosta, a northwestern region in Italy, that went very well with each dish.
For our starters, Zack had the stewed octopus and I had the spiced pork terrine. I had eaten pork terrine before, but upon reading the Italian name for the dish “coppa di testa” (which I know to mean “headcheese”) I figured I would be in for a different kind of treat. Headcheese, if you’re unaware, is a cylindrical loaf made of bits of meat from the pig’s head, tongue, and sometimes other strange parts mixed with gelatin and allowed to set, then it’s sliced like ham or turkey. While a tad more adventurous than I normally order, it turned out to be delicious. The slices of headcheese were so thin and delicate I didn’t even need to use my knife to cut it. It was seasoned with fennel seeds and had a very subtle mustard vinaigrette drizzled on top. Alongside the headcheese were pieces of grilled bread and the perfect accompaniment of a radish and fennel salad, very lightly dressed. The salad added a much needed tartness and crispness to the crusty bread and the salty, soft headcheese.
Zack’s octopus was stewed in a light tomato sauce along with chickpeas, olives, and capers. The octopus was very well cooked, tender, and sweet. The chickpeas added an earthiness to the dish with the olives and capers providing refreshing little pockets of salt and tangy brine. Zack remarked that it reminded him of pasta alla puttanesca (pasta in a tomato sauce with olives, capers, and a base of anchovies).
For the secondi (or pasta) course, I had the orecchiette alla pescatore, pasta shaped like thick contact lenses (orecchiette actually means “little ears,” not contact lenses) tossed in a sweet tomato sauce with onions, mussels, cubes of fish, and octopus. The orecchiette had the soft, irregular texture of freshly made pasta and the tomato sauce was amazingly sweet without being cloying or losing its complexity. The seafood, again, was perfectly cooked and tender.
Zack had the spaghetti alla chitarra with tripe braised in tomato sauce sprinkled with breadcrumbs. The freshly made spaghetti had a similar rough texture to my orecchiette and instead of typical stick straight strands, these strands of spaghetti were a little wavy, almost like Chinese egg noodles. I’m not normally a huge fan of tripe, but this was braised very well and tasted mildly like smoky bacon. With help from the crunchy breadcrumbs and the tangy sauce, the tripe and chewy spaghetti worked very well together.
I had the grilled hangar steak for my meat course. This dish consisted of five thick slices of lean hangar steak (cooked perfectly medium rare, just as I had asked for) atop Pecorino dusted, fried potatoes and grilled radicchio. The potatoes tasted decadent with their cheesy, crunchy crust and went very well with the deep, charred flavors of the steak and the sweet, bitter radicchio.
Zack had the meatballs served in tomato sauce (a very tomato sauce filled meal, yes) with mustard greens. “Do these taste heavy to you? I mean they’re good, but…” Zack said as he handed me a large chunk of meatball. I had to admit that it was a little dense, as if the ground meat had been overworked, and I couldn’t help but think two things: 1) these are just meatballs, good meatballs, but average not-great meatballs, nothing special and 2) my meatballs are better. Sorry, Mr. White, it’s true. So, needless to say, after every other dish being quite special, I was a bit underwhelmed by that one.
And lastly, for dessert, I had the pumpkin pudding while Zack had the chocolate “panna cotta“. The pumpkin pudding was topped with a dried fruit marmalade (sticky, candied raisins, golden raisins, dried cranberries, etc.) alongside a scoop of cinnamon gelato. The pudding had the consistency of a very soft pumpkin pie filling and was not too sweet, which I greatly appreciated after such a large meal, and the cinnamon gelato was refreshing, emitting a not unpleasant floral aftertaste that Zack claimed he couldn’t detect. The one thing I did yearn for was some textural contrast, something that had been very much present in all of the other dishes. A crunchy or crusty element would have added greatly to the dish, but, as I said to Zack, “then it would just be pumpkin pie.” Maybe I was just craving pumpkin pie.
Zack’s chocolate “panna cotta” was served with espresso gelato. I use the quotation marks because it came as a crumbly chocolate cake. Perhaps there was a tiny dollop of cooked cream in the middle of the cake, but I didn’t detect it in the couple of bites that I had. Cooked cream should have a flan-like consistency. It should not be a dry miniature cake. Zack enjoyed his dessert, but I thought it lacked the spark and sophistication of the some of the other dishes.
All in all, the Sunday prix fixe at L’Impero is a great deal and the atmosphere is very nice for a special occasion (I just hope your meal isn’t marred like ours was by a fourtop of moronic, loud, drunk out-of-towners celebrating a birthday behind us). Was the meal perfect? No. Did I leave L’Impero sated and content? Yes. Did I gasp a little when it came time to pay? Yes. Did I agree with much of what Bruni said about L’Impero, positive and negative? Mmm…maybe, but you should just go see for yourself.
- 2 4-Course Prix Fixe Dinners – $84
- 1 Bottle Valle d’Aosta Red – $55
- 2 Bottles Water – $17
- Total – $156 (excluding tax and tip)
