Laboratorio del Galileo Review

[Schneier]

Laboratorio del Galileo is a restaurant within a restaurant. Galileo is one of Washington DC's foodie temples, and Roberto Donna is its high priest. Inside Galileo, Chef Donna built a separate kitchen just for him. It's a demonstration kitchen, and he gives classes there. On some nights he also cooks. Hence, the Laboratorio.

There's one seating. There's one menu at one price. There's one optional wine pairing if you want. And there's the opportunity to watch your dinner being prepared.

Donna works in an open kitchen with two assistants. Much of the cooking happens with everyone's back to us (kind of like Catholic mass before Vatican II), but above the counter where the food is plated is a large mirror that allows the diners to watch. There were eighteen of us at seven tables (the maximum number the room can seat is twenty-eight).

We had table number seven. This is important. When you call and make a reservation, ask for table number seven. When you call to confirm, ask again. When you get to the restaurant, check to make sure you're being seated at table number seven. The whole point of this exercise is to watch Donna cook for you, and table seven is the best place to do that. It's one of the three front tables, but it's just off to the side. It's the table at the exact best spot for you to get up and look over the counter. It's the table at the exact best spot to ask Donna a question, comment on the food, or generally chat with him. It's the best spot if you want to walk into the kitchen to see what's going on. Table number seven: ask for it.

The maitre d' remembered me from my reservation. A reservation at Laboratorio involves the faxing of a signed reservation form, one that asked if we had any dietary restrictions. "We refuse to eat boring food," I wrote. Everyone in the kitchen heard about that.

Anyway, the food. There is a printed menu, but you don't see it until the end. If you don't eat foie gras--six of the eighteen diners did not--he makes an alternative. Presumably he'll also honor any other not-too-onerous food restriction. There were about ten courses total, and five wines in the pairing.

Bread started off the meal: some delicious breadsticks (some made with olive and other wish cheddar) and some even more delicious deep-fried double-raised pizza dough. And a stock of warm and very well made baguettes.

The first course was a pair of oysters, wrapped in fresh mint and basil leaves and fried, served with a saffron garlic aioli. Absolutely delicious, a perfect introduction to the marvels to come.

Next came a foie gras creme brulee served with a small half roasted fig and an edible snapdragon. This was another delicious course: the light egg flavor of the savory creme brulee just popped with the bits of foie gras mixed in.

My companion was one of those six non-foie-gras eaters, and was treated to a guinea-hen sausage with onion confit and a drizzle of veal-stock reduction. He was as delighted with his dish as I was with mine, using bread to sop up the last dregs.

Course three was soup. We watched Donna and his assistants lay the various bits into the bowls while we ate the previous course: head cheese (we asked), blood sausage (that was obvious), pancetta, crispy onions, sun-dried tomato slices, chives. After distributing the plates, the servers came around with a tureen of celery root soup. The result was a tantalizing mixture of flavors and textures around a celerac base.

Tiny ravioli came next, stuffed with green-apple-and-pork sausage and served with a pork jus and a sprinking of Parmesano Reggiano. Another perfect dish, but there was one flavor we couldn't identify. Our best guess was vanilla; Donna told us it was almond.

That's when he remembered we didn't eat boring food here at table number seven.

More pasta followed: tagliarini with sea urchin roe sauce. It looked like pesto, but it wasn't. It tasted as if it had some kind of cream base, but it didn't. Everything about this dish was beautiful, including the presentation. We watched as Donna and his assistants cooked the pasta, mixed in the sauce, and then formed little mounds by first putting the mixture into cups and then turning those cups over onto our plates.

The sixth course (if you're counting) was risotto with prosecco and celery. I expected nothing less than perfect risotto when I saw it cooking, and I was not disappointed.

My dining companion volunteers at the L'Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda. At this point my notes indicate the he engaged in a spirited discussion with the maitre d' and Donna about kitchen knives, one that resulted in Donna realizing that he had no idea where his cleaver was.

This was important, because the cleaver was required to break open the salt-encrusted sea bass that had just emerged from the oven. This was served with braised fennel ("fennel confit" is what the menu said) and an herbed pesto sauce. Done right, this process results in a fish that's flaky and tender and flavorful, but not salty. The fennel was strong and delicious--I've been liking fennel a lot these days--and the herb sauce accented both beautifully. And the cleave--they found another.

Two courses earlier we had seen a duck come out of the oven and baby eggplants grilling towards the back. When finally assembled on the plate, the dish was: "Roasted Whole Muscovy Duck with Huckleberry Sauce, Grilled Baby Eggplant, Virginia Pole Beans, Whole Mushrooms and Semolina Dolce." This was a dish where the individual ingredients shone. The duck (each person got a portion) was delicious. The vegetables were delicious. The mushrooms--they were hen-of-the-woods mushrooms--were delicious. And the sauce was delicious.

Sometime during this course Donna asked us and another table if we wanted to sample something he was cooking for tomorrow. It was a tripe stew. After I tasted it the server heard me mutter "Wow, that doesn't suck." He almost lost it right there.

But no time for jokes, because the ninth course was beckoning. Laboratorio has its own cheese cart, and we got to try a selection of really interesting cheeses: goat cheese from Pennsylvania, Crottin de Chavignol, tomme, cheddar, a long-aged Maytag Blue, Bruss, and Tartuffo. That list is in the order we ate them, and we had only a small taste of each. Everything was good. The cheddar, tomme, and Maytag Blue were fantastic (it looked like someone left it on a shelf and forgot about it for a couple of years). The Tartuffo was a infused with truffles, and tasted sweet and delicious. And my notes about the Bruss say "rips the back of your throat off." This is a cheese Donna makes himself. He takes the dregs of the cheese cart, throws it in a container with some grappa, and lets it ferment for a month and a half. The result is just barely food, but it's definitely worth having a little bit on some bread. More...I'm not sure.

By now we had menus. The next (tenth) course was a "Frappe of Bicerin," basically a coffee, chocolate, cream, and rum drink. I thought of it as a intermezzio, after the cheese and before the dessert.

Then came the real dessert, a "Ricotta of Fuscella with Lemon and Orange Candied Fruit served with Plum Comput in Orange Cassis with Chamomile Sauce and Honey Ice Cream." This was actually several desserts. There was a small round ricotta piece with plum compote on top, and then honey ice cream in an edible spoon made from caramelized sugar. Very good stuff; I would have eaten more if I weren't stuffed.

Not that there was too much food. There were many courses, but they were all small. At two of the other tables the dessert came with a candle, and we sat through the most god-awful rendition of "Happy Birthday" I have ever heard. Finally, a few petit fours, and we were done.

The wines were good but not spectacular: Gavi Marchesa 2001 with the first three courses, Roero Arneis "Il Mosaico" Scanavino 2002 with courses four and five, Chardonnay Marchesi di Gresy 2001 with courses six and seven, Barolo Cossetti 1997 with the duck and the cheese, and Moscate d'Asti "La Serra" Marchesi di Gresy 2002 with the desserts. Note that all the wines were from Piedmont.

All told, this was just about as good a meal as I could have hoped for. I loved eating in the Laboratorio. I loved the food. The service was both professional and friendly; it was much more relaxed than outside in Galileo. I am definitely coming back.

Bruce

[Schneier]

Sorry; I forgot to add price information.

$100 for the food.

$60 for the wine pairing.

Bruce

[vengroff]

Thanks, Bruce.

The more first-person reports I hear, the more I am convinced that I have to give the Lab a try.

[theakston]

What are people's thoughts on the wine pairings? Worth it or better to buy your own or bring your own (which I believe is allowed with corkage)?

I usually opt for the pairings but Schneier didn't seem to think much of them.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

( I have a reservation here in my very near future! )

[Schneier]

What are people's thoughts on the wine pairings? Worth it or better to buy your own or bring your own (which I believe is allowed with corkage)?

I usually opt for the pairings but Schneier didn't seem to think much of them.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

The pairings were okay. Not great, but okay.

Unless I am dining with at least four, I generally opt for the pairings. I'd rather have less of more different wines than a half bottle of one wine that only went with one of the courses.

B

[tjaehnigen]

Bring your own wine. For $15 corkage per bottle it is a steal!