#44 – CHOCOLATE AND OLIVE OIL BASTONCINO at DEL POSTO

Once again Time Out New York released their Top 100 Dishes of the year and once again, I’m going to eat my way through every one. And no price point or subway delay will stop me. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100.

Four stars in the New York Times is a really big deal. There are only seven restaurants in the entire city that have this distinction and the most recent is a controversial one: Del Posto. It’s the first Italian restaurant to receive this many stars since the 1970’s and many people claim that the Mario Batali/Lidia Bastianich palace is not in the same league as other four-star restaurants like Le Bernadin and Daniel and that the review was released suspiciously close to the opening day of Batali’s mega-grocery Eataly.

Even though Italian is not my favorite cuisine (especially when spending oodles of money), I always wanted to dine at Del Posto, but never had the money lying around to make it happen. So when Time Out’s list was released and one of the complimentary petit fours was listed, I realized this would be the year I scrapped together the cash and made it happen. Only problem was: now that they have four stars in the NY Times, how would I possibly score a reservation?

Well, this is where my resourcefulness really comes into play. First, I decided that dining here at lunch would be quite a bit cheaper and probably easier to snag a table. Upon checking Open Table, it looks like lunch reservations are rather hard to come by as well. Except, this winter bombarded us with snow and on a very snowy, miserable Wednesday afternoon, I gave Del Posto a call and found out we could get a table for two just about any time of the afternoon.

Turns out I’m really good at getting these list items. Wish I could make money doing it somehow. Time Out, are you hiring to review your reviews, by any chance?

I was amazed to see the gaudy, old fashioned dining room rather vacant. We arrived at 1:30 and we joined only about four other tables. So in some ways we had the restaurant to ourselves. The dish we had to taste, the chocolate and olive oil bastoncino, was included at the end of the tasting menus. My wallet told me to take advantage of the amazing $29 three course lunch deal, but I felt like since I’m here at Del Posto and I had my credit card in hand, I had to listen to my heart and order the $75 six course menu tradizionale (the dinner version comes with one more course and costs an extra $50).

And it was pretty spectacular. After some forgettable amuse bouches and bread with lardo (pig fat), our first course came out: a platter of a few select antipasto, including a creative take on a caesar salad with escarole and a doughy crust wrapper in some prosciutto di parma. The meal continued to build as the next course was a succulent and moist olive-oil poached tuna belly with a luscious side of buffalo mozzarella and out-of-this world sweet dehydrated tomatoes.

The server then brought us a complimentary pasta dish. I’m not sure if this was because it was quiet in the restaurant, because I had asked about some of the a la carte dishes, or if they could sense my food blog credentials. But regardless, this was just one of the extra ways that the staff used to treat us like kings. It was really a special meal.

Anyway, the pasta dish was the Whole Wheat Tonnarelli with Spicy Cicerchie (chickpeas), Fried Rosemary, and Shaved Bonito. The bonito (dried smoked mackerel) threw me off since I relate it to Japanese cuisine, but it worked perfectly well here in terms of flavor. I did find the mix of all the textures to be a little dry. Whole wheat pasta and chickpeas both tend to have a mealy quality and I wanted something to off-set that a bit. I appreciated the dish and the pasta was perfectly cooked, but the combination of textures and flavors was not my thing.

From there on out, there was not a misstep in the meal. The last two courses consisted of some signature dishes and ones I was dying to taste. Yesterday’s 100 Layer Lasagna was the lasagna I had been craving all winter long. I didn’t quite understand what this would look like, but it made sense when I saw the slice of 50 (I didn’t count) perfectly thin and browned pasta sheets layered between 50 spoonfuls of the most decadent old school pasta meat sauce (combo of marinara, bechamel, and bolognese) resting atop a bright red dollop of tomato sauce. It had all the rich, cheesy, meaty flavors along with the charred and soft textures of a perfect lasagna while retaining the elegant refined presentation you’d expect at a place of Del Posto’s reputation. It was awe inspiring.

The savory dishes ended with a bang as the server sliced and portioned our veal table side. The meat had been cooked in ash and hay to a tender pink with a dark black exterior. The server walked us through all the steps as he dished it on a bed of creamy golden polenta, drizzled it with olive oil and an intense and chunky osso bucco vinaigrette. It was accompanied with an allotment of seemingly just picked fresh herbs. The flavor combinations were heavenly and the wet earthiness of the herbs transported me to a farm somewhere in rural Italy.

As if that wasn’t all delectable enough, pastry chef Brooks Headley came out and presented us with an off menu cheese course. It wasn’t just a platter of cheese with some fruit, but rather the most unusual combination of cheese, chocolate, and eggplant. The eggplant crostata (fritter) may have been my favorite dish of the meal, especially when dressed up with decadent chocolate swirls and sweet melty robiola cheese.

We received two more desserts and in many ways the sweets here are more inventive and delicious than the savories. I absolutely adored the tart and creamy Sfera di Caprino, which refers to the spheres of goat cheese that were crusted with buttery crisp breadcrumbs. But the standout for me was the addition of a refreshing and vegetal celery sorbet. The other dessert was just as strange and similarly spectacular – a warm polenta cake with sage ice cream and caramelized sweet potatoes. Three combinations of sweet and savory (all featured a vegetable) and they all hit it out of the park. Home run!

Amazingly, we still had yet to get to the Time Out list item. The dish they singled out was the Chocolate and Olive Oil Bastoncino, which is a lollipop of rich vanilla gelato wrapped in hard dark chocolate and then rolled in olive oil crisped bread crumbs. TONY accurately compares it to a Klondike bar. The only problem was that Klondike bars last a lot longer and this was just a bite. It was a delectable bite that worked perfectly well, but in some ways I think this complimentary petit fours (one of an entire box full) got overshadowed by the rest of the fantastic meal.

So do I think Del Posto earns its four stars? I have to say wholeheartedly, “Yes!” It was a phenomenal lunch that was worth every penny. And considering they offer an amazing $29 three course meal (that also includes all those complimentary petit fours), I’m praying for another bad weather day when I can walk in once again.

Would Del Posto’s Chocolate and Olive Oil Bastoncino make my Top 100? Even though it was a component of an unforgettable meal, this was not the bite I will be talking about for years to come (maybe if it had featured some vegetables). But it was still just as delectable and delicious as everything else here so it gets a 9 out of 10.