Felice

[Jason Perlow]

Felice

279 Kinderkamack Road

Oradell, NJ

201-261-0357

Felice is a 2-week old Italian restaurant specializing in fresh pastas, risotto, and brick oven pizzas -- it's located on the adjoining half of the building that was formerly Hagler's on Kinderkamack Road in Oradell, which also houses The Diner. Both restaurants are owned by the owner of Saint's Cafe in Teaneck, and Le Jardin and Brother's Pizza in Edgewater.

Rachel, Jhlurie and myself stopped in to eat there tonight -- the interior is spacious with a vaulted ceiling and is painted sort of a panna cotta tuscan orange, with exposed dark brown wood beams, giving it a very warm feel. The kitchen is semi-open, revealing the brick pizza oven. Originally it was intended to be a wood fired oven, but Oradell wouldn't permit it so its a gas fired brick oven. Nevertheless, even with this setback Felice produces very good pizza, for a two week old restaurant. The crust is thin and has a nice chewy texture, and has just the slightest amount of charcoal-burn to the edges to impart that brick oven flavor. The pizza sauce has a very good acid to sweetness ratio, is properly seasoned and is an excellent conveyance for the cheese. The pizzas are all 14" and come in about a dozen gourmet combinations including the standard Margherita. Unfortunately on our first visit we decided to order one of the more ambitious combos -- the Pizza Felice ($13.00), which has a lot of wet ingredients on it -- marinated artichoke hearts, fresh tomato, onions, roasted peppers and prosciutto -- which made it VERY drippy and more of a cut with knife and fork kind of pizza and made the cheese more runny than bubbly. Next time we will order the plain margherita, which we observed on someone else's table and looked perfectly done with nice and bubbly cheese on it. Nevertheless the Felica was very good but in terms of pizza toppings, less is definitely more.

We also got a chance to sample the pastas. I ordered the basic cheese ravioli in tomato sauce (Ravioli alla Berta, $12.00), and Jon had the Penne Arrabiata ($10.00). My fresh raviolis were very good -- tomato sauce again was nice and zingy and the ricotta/basil/parsley mixture on the inside was really good. Pasta texture was also very good. Jon's penne was perfectly al dente and his arrabiata had a nice kick of peperoncino without being overpowering. Rachel ordered a baked eggplant with spinach (Melanzanie Florentina, $11.00), which is eggplant rollatine stuffed with fresh sauteed spinach and ricotta. This was a REALLY good dish, and the sauteed spinach was perfectly cooked and not at all overdone. I expected nothing less from this place because The Diner also knows how to treat vegetables properly.

Felice utilizes the services of Le Jardin's pastry chef and all the desserts ($6.00)and gelato are made in house. I had the tiramisu -- which was an excellent specimen and managed not to be too overpowering with the coffee. Jon had a flourless chocolate cake which was dense and satisfying without being too over the top in chocolate flavor, and rachel had a banana bread pudding which I thought was excellent.

The espresso was good, but I think they still need to tweak the machine or their technique for getting a good crema out of it.

Note that this place has a liquor license, and it has a full bar. I didnt get a chance to peruse the wine list this time.

Verdict: Oradell and the surrounding area has lacked a decent italian-american place and good pizza for a long time. That void has now been filled.

Edited December 11, 2003 by Jason Perlow (log)

[Rachel Perlow]

I agree with Jason that this restaurant filled a void. We were heading over there for a burger at the Diner and were pleasantly surprised that the Italian restaurant was finally finished. Not only that, but a pretty bustling crowd for 8 PM on a Wednesday night. It was at least half full during our entire visit, including at least half the bar stools. And it is a very nice, welcoming bar (full menu available), which also has a few tables to make up the restaurant's smoking section. Unfortunately, the archway to the bar is very open and our table was one of the closest to the bar and the cigarette smoke was a little annoying, next time I'll request a table a little further into the dining room.

The staff was very experienced for such a new place. It makes me wonder if they were transferred from one of Johnny's other restaurants. I forgot to ask. Oh well, I'm not going to question good service.

I really liked my eggplant dish, I've never had such fresh, al dente almost, spinach in a baked dish like that. Of the desserts, my favorite was Jon's Chocolate Marquis, which was layers of flourless chocolate cake and chocolate mousse.

BTW - they also have panini sandwiches, which might be a good lunch time choice. And they have a list of entrees including seafood, fish, chicken and steak. They also have an Italian styled Liver and Onions dish on the menu. I wonder how often that is ordered? I'll have to bring my parents there sometime to see how my dad likes it (the only person I know who orders liver in restaurants).

I wish them lots of success, check it out if you're in the area.

[alanz]

I had the pizza at Felice for lunch last week. The pizza was good, but not great. It was tasty, but looked like and had the consistancy of local pizzaria fare.

I was really hoping that they'd make pizza more along the lines of John's in NYC or Brooklyns of Hackensack.

For me, pizza is all about bread. Give me a great pizza dough, add a little bit of wonderful cheese and THEN top it with some dollaps of sauce, and you have pizza as I prefer it.

Lauren and I were at Felice for dinner tonight, and the chef came by and asked about my pizza the other day, and I relayed just these thoughts to him. I asked if he'd ever been to Brooklyn's (which I rate below, but close to John's) and he said yes, but he didn't think his customers wanted that style of pizza. I pointed out to him that Brooklyns is often quite busy... and yes people do like pizza that they don't get at the local dive. He said that next time I come in he'll make the pizza any way I want, and that is greatly appreciated (perhaps they'll be able to offer two styles, local and "rustic" as I'll call my version)

In any case, Lauren had pannini with proscuitto, sun dried tomatoes, arugula, and cheese. Quite lovely.

I had veal parmagiana, nicely done, though the pasta could have used a minute or more cooking.

There was a private party there tonight, so we were seated at the bar. Unfortunately we came home reeking of smoke. Although the place is well vented, they really could use some (more/better) smoke precipitation equipment to clean up the air.

This place has promise, and they are trying... not bad for a new place (and two blocks from my home)

Edited December 13, 2003 by alanz (log)

[Jason Perlow]

I was really hoping that they'd make pizza more along the lines of John's in NYC or Brooklyns of Hackensack

John's maybe, but not Brooklyn's. I hate that place. The pizza sauce is utterly unseasoned and tasteless, and combined with the unsalted mozzarella they use its one of the blandest pies I've ever eaten. You literally need two or three salty meat toppings on one of those to compensate for it. At least Felice's sauce has some character and he's using a combination of low moisture mozzarella and fresh.

The place is two weeks old. Lets give him some time to tweak it. Its got a lot of promise.

[alanz]

Jason,

I agree that John's is in another (higher) class than Brooklyns. My point is that they both construct their pizzas in the same way... and that's the way I prefer.

It would be great if Felice turns into a little find. It's closer than Sanducci's, which I've also found to have very pleasant and serviceable meals over the years.

[Jason Perlow]

I plan to spend more time over there to try more of the pizzas and to talk to John about what improvements they need. He can easily make it a top notch pizza place that we will all be proud to call our own, just with some tweaks.

To me its not as much the construction of the pizza that needs tweaking but the ingredient arrangement and perhaps the proportions of them in some of the selections. Also he should have more simpler ones on the menu then most of the dozen or so he came up with.

[alanz]

Jason,

You and Rachel should come by for dinner one evening... we can collaborate on a pizza on my Kamado (fundamentally a coal fired brick oven < s >)

[alanz]

I went to Felice again with Lauren and the boys (Scott got home yesterday from college and had not been to the restaurant yet)

We ordered the proscuitto pannini again, a lasagna, and a pizza margarita.

Johhny noticed us, came by to chat. Then he came over again asking how we wanted him to make the pizza. He asked us if he should make it traditional style (what he called the "real" way) instead of the way they normally make it.

He asked "do you like garlic?". We smiled and said "of course"... then and I said "do whatever you feel best". He disappeared into the kitchen.

The pizza was lovely. Thin crisp crust, fresh tomatoes (not sauce), some basil, fresh garlic and cheese. Quite different from the one we got last week. So, they do know how to make a pizza well, and now we just have to convince him that his other customers will appreciate this style.

The lasagna was very nice... fine tasting cheese... Scott particularly liked that.

Lauren came late to the table, and ordered an artichoke and roasted pepper antipasto.

We had two desserts. The Chocolate Marqui was surprisingly creamy... and that's a good thing (flourless chocolate cakes are so often dry). The Tiramisu was delicious.

I can't help but express how happy I am that Johnny took the time to come over and prepare something for us that really made a difference. This could turn into a first class local joint < s >

Edited December 18, 2003 by alanz (log)

[dumpling]

Finally went there tonight with a friend. Friday night, seemed relatively busy until about 9:30. I asked for a decaf tea and the young waiter said he had Lipton. I asked if he had anything else and he said well we have regular tea and herbal tea. Apparently herbal tea did not translate to any form of "decaf" tea; I had to plum for it. In any event he seemed very obliging as was the waitstaff in general.

We ordered the breaded eggplant parmigian and the chicken marsala. The chicken was cooked alright. The marsala was okay but nothing to write home about. The mushrooms in the dish were fairly skimpy. I happen to make a nice one so perhaps I was being overly critical. The eggplant on the other hand was quite nice-my friend's dish. She gobbled the whole thing, which was a pretty fair size. For it to so entice a girl who's middle name is moderation to eat beyond her capacity, then it must be good. She particularly liked that it was breaded nicely as many eggplant dishes that she has had out are either not breaded well or not breaded.

No desserts, too full.

Didn't try any of the things that Jason and alanz tried but will wander in in the future as it's so close.

[Jason Perlow]

BTW we returned about a week or so ago for lunch and had John make us a THIN CRUST pizza -- a plain one with cheese and fresh basil, and it came out great.

We also had one of their foccacia sandwiches -- chicken parmigiana -- and it was of the best examples of that I've ever had.

[Phil Ward]

Thanks for the reviews. Anybody ever look at the wine list or order a bottle or glass?

Phil

[dumpling]

I quick glanced it; seemed to have a fair selection but I didn't have anything.

[menton1]

Dumpling, your negative comments about this place have been echoed by several friends of mine who went to this place... I did not report much because it was third party info. They have also reported that the new place in Dumont, Intermezzo, has better food, better pricing, and no smoke! Also it's a BYOB. Also there is a another new Italian, Lieto Italia, on Main Street in New Milford, about 6 blocks from Felice. Anybody have first-hand reports about these new places?

[Rosie]

Dumpling, your negative comments about this place have been echoed by several friends of mine who went to this place... I did not report much because it was third party info. They have also reported that the new place in Dumont, Intermezzo, has better food, better pricing, and no smoke! Also it's a BYOB. Also there is a another new Italian, Lieto Italia, on Main Street in New Milford, about 6 blocks from Felice. Anybody have first-hand reports about these new places?

Haven't been to either. If you happen to have address and phone #'s please post them. Thanks.