Ciano

[LPShanet]

Dropped in to Ciano last night with a friend, and ate at the bar. Overall, the food is very good, and the place was bustling, though it started to clear out quite quickly after 9pm. Service was friendly, but definitely not super-sharp yet. Not sure if this is a function of being new, or if it's going to stay that way. The food is a bit more refined than the Italian places that call themselves rustic, but certainly not as carefully tweaked as the highest end stuff (Del Posto, etc.).

We ate:

Dungeness crab crostino: Delicious, with very sweet crab meat and a little slice of goodness from the charcuterie/salumi dept for added unctuousness.

Chicken liver crostino: The livers had been whipped before topping, which made this much lighter than you'd expect.

Poached farmer's egg with garlic crostino, basil pesto and culatello: The surprising star of this dish was the roasted peppers, which added a really great flavor to the whole dish.

Oxtail ravioli braised in Barolo with rosemary butter: Delicious, but very rich. The one complaint (other than the extreme richness) was that we got a couple of pieces of tail bone in two ravioli.

Burrata di bufala with broccoli rabe pesto, roasted plum tomatoes and onion jam: A great tweak on the caprese salad. Reminiscent of the excellent version at Mozza in LA.

Nantucket bay scallops with hazelnuts, Brussels sprouts and Hubbard squash mostarda: Very nice sear on the scallops, and the sauce was excellent.

Roasted veal meatballs with creamy white polenta, herbs and truffle pecorino

Malloredus with Dungeness crab, speck and bottarga di Muggine: Very tasty, and rich despite being a mostly seafood preparation.

Tortellini stuffed with braised veal and sweetbreads in fontina cheese fonduta: Too rich even for me, though delicious. The order should have been 3 tortellini instead of around 10!

When my s/o arrived, we doubled back and ordered another round of the crostini, scallops and meatballs, which gave us an idea of how consistent the kitchen is (or isn't). I have to say that I was slightly disappointed that the second orders of scallops and meatballs had more flaws in them than the first round. This wasn't just because the novelty had worn off, but because there were some minor technical errors made the second time around. Still, even the weaker iterations were very good. The main difference we noticed was that the second order of meatballs were a bit larger, and lacked the wonderful crusty exterior texture that the first order had. The general flavor was the same, but the second order had noticeably less of the (delicious) polenta and much less sauce, making the dish a little less balanced. The meatballs were also slightly bigger the second time. The second order of scallops were quite as caramelized on the sear, either. I wonder whether the first team line cooks had cut out by the end of the night.

Something else worth noting is that they offer almost all of their wines by the half bottle, which is a great thing. They have an excellent wine selection, rife with interesting choices off the beaten path, as well as the better known stuff. The soms are well versed and made excellent recommendations. The half bottle program isn't limited to whatever they stock in pre-bottled halves. Instead, they happily open and decant half a bottle of most of the selections on the wine list, and then sell the remainder as another half bottle or by the glass. This is great for those who want to try a few things and experiment, without being limited to the by the glass selection. I wish more restaurants did this. The only caveat is that you may want to keep an eye on how long your bottle has been open if you get the second half of an already open one. All of ours were freshly opened so can't comment on that.

Overall, the bar staff were really nice, but didn't seem all that well versed in the wine or cocktail offerings. My guess, based on the owner's previous efforts (e.g. Phillipe) is that it's never going to be as robust a service setup as a Danny Meyer establishment, but with luck enough of the current staff will stay so that they get more experience.

Seems like I've been eating a lot of very rich Italian food lately (Ai Fiori, Ciano, L'artusi, et al.). I hope the places that do this are able to lighten things up come summer when I may not be craving such rich, heavy fare. For now, though, it hits the spot.

[oakapple]

Something else worth noting is that they offer almost all of their wines by the half bottle, which is a great thing. They have an excellent wine selection, rife with interesting choices off the beaten path, as well as the better known stuff. The soms are well versed and made excellent recommendations. The half bottle program isn't limited to whatever they stock in pre-bottled halves. Instead, they happily open and decant half a bottle of most of the selections on the wine list, and then sell the remainder as another half bottle or by the glass. This is great for those who want to try a few things and experiment, without being limited to the by the glass selection. I wish more restaurants did this. The only caveat is that you may want to keep an eye on how long your bottle has been open if you get the second half of an already open one. All of ours were freshly opened so can't comment on that.

I've been to Ciano twice now, and both times the "half bottles" I ordered were full bottles that they opened in my presence, and then poured half into a caraffe. It may help that both of my visits were relatively early in the evening. I believe that any remaining half-bottles are generally sold by the glass to the bar crowd.

[LPShanet]

Something else worth noting is that they offer almost all of their wines by the half bottle, which is a great thing. They have an excellent wine selection, rife with interesting choices off the beaten path, as well as the better known stuff. The soms are well versed and made excellent recommendations. The half bottle program isn't limited to whatever they stock in pre-bottled halves. Instead, they happily open and decant half a bottle of most of the selections on the wine list, and then sell the remainder as another half bottle or by the glass. This is great for those who want to try a few things and experiment, without being limited to the by the glass selection. I wish more restaurants did this. The only caveat is that you may want to keep an eye on how long your bottle has been open if you get the second half of an already open one. All of ours were freshly opened so can't comment on that.

I've been to Ciano twice now, and both times the "half bottles" I ordered were full bottles that they opened in my presence, and then poured half into a caraffe. It may help that both of my visits were relatively early in the evening. I believe that any remaining half-bottles are generally sold by the glass to the bar crowd.

That was my experience as well, and my visit was not early in the evening at all. Then again, our orders were a bit off the beaten path. I suspect this will also be a good thing for solo bar diners, as there may be interesting things to drink by the glass on any given night, if you think to ask what's been opened.

[Sneakeater]

That was certainly the case at Bar Henry (although the food was so bad that it kept one away).

Edited January 21, 2011 by Sneakeater (log)