Otto Enoteca Pizzeria

[Bux]

Having had exquisite hare with dark chocolate in several forms in France as well as chicken and pork with dark chocolate in Mexican restaurants, I'm surprised anyone finds foie gras and dark chocolate weird. Come to think of it, I had a great foire gras, onion marmalade and dark chocolate sandwich on a baguette in Paris once.

[Bux]

I'm sorry, I forget to look at the title of the thread. I mean to say that I thought it was kind of weird to have the shells on the pizza, but then again there's a great tradition of keeping the shells in a linguine with white clam sauce and by cooking the clams on the pizza, the juices get absorbed by the bread. You could steam the clams separately, put them on the pizza and serve the juices on the side in a dipping bowl, but that seems even clumsier.

[Kim WB]

what was interesting was mario's response that "people complain about anything..it only takes a minute to schuck those clams"..if the picture is indicitive of the real pizza served, it had lots of clams that, unless you wanted to submerge both hands agressively into the task, without a care for flying clam juice, would take longer than a minute to shuck.

[Bux]

it had lots of clams

See, Mario's correct. I guarantee that if if had fewer clams there'd be more complaints.

[rstarobi]

Sietsema calls it a "Pizza Romana" in this article in the Village Voice:

Counter Culture

[macrosan]

At last, at last, after all this time and space, I can now post on this thread I had lunch at Otto today

I ate alone at the bar. The bartender was the worst I have ever come across in America. He took my order for a pizza and I asked for the wine list. He gave it to me and immediately went away. He was chattering non-stop to a couple of regulars and a group of friends. It took me five minutes to attract his attention to ask which wines came by the glass, and he gave me another list and disappeared. After a further ten minutes, I gave up trying to attract his attention. I didn't order wine. The next time he even looked in my direction was when I called out to him that I wanted dessert. He got three other peoples' orders wrong, corrected them, and still got one wrong. He had to be reminded by people that they had ordered other dishes and drinks. Never once did I hear an apology. The tip I left was about 10% and it was too much, but I couldn't even get his attention to say what I thought of the service

I ordered Pizza Napoletana, and it was really poor. Actually, I quite liked the crunchy base, although I agree with the opinion expressed here that this is no more a pizza than stuffed naan is a pizza. I have had pizze from north to south of Italy (granted, excluding Sardinia) and all over the UK at widely differing Italian restaurants, and I have never been served anything like this. Butn whatever it's called, I found the base interesting. The problem was the topping. Pizza Napoletana comes with tomatoes, anchovies, capers and olives. This pizza didn't come with tomatoes, it came with tomato paste, tasting just like the stuff my wife used to buy in jars, to go with pasta, before I told her I would refuse to eat the stuff. The tomato paste was frankly awful. It was sticky and sweet and cloying. I can't believe they make this in the kitchen, I can only assume they also buy it in jars. The capers wer very small and mild, and the anchovies were very small and almost tasteless. The olives (Greek kalamata, I think) were quite good. Overall, this pizza was the least enjoyable I've had since I once went into Pizza Hut maybe ten years ago. It just didn't taste good.

I then had vanilla and amaretto gelati, which were quite good. Not spectacular, maybe slightly too gelatinous, but they were OK.

The check came to $17 without tax and tip. I can think of no reason why I would ever go to Otto again, except maybe to see if that bartender has kept his job

[rstarobi]

Second trip to Otto over the weekend:

I went with a friend and split two pizzas - the Romana (anchovies, capers, tomato sauce, mozzarella, chilis) and the Lardo (lard and olive oil).

This was my first visit since the restaurant's opening week, so I was curious to taste the changes that people had been talking about.

I went on Sunday during a somewhat offpeak hour (around 2:30, maybe). The restaurant was busy, but we were seated immediately - I seem to have very good luck with seating, probably due to my lack of conformity to "normal" lunch and dinner hours.

Otto continues to stint on its beer selection to enable its wine habit. The original two beers served remain the only two beers served - a brooklyn lager and brooklyn pilsner. The lager was good with the pizza, but the not so subtle message was, "drink wine, yutz."

A sampling of three cheese was excellent - ricotta, taleggio and gorgonzola served with truffled honey, reconstituted apricots in a white wine sauce and brandied cherries. The taleggio was the big standout.

The pizzas were good, but not as flavorful as I had remembered. The crust was softer, more like a pita than it had been before. While most of the ingredients were top notch, the lardo didn't really add much flavor, so it ended up tasting like a heavily oiled pita, and the tomato sauce lacked the brightness of my first visit.

I was told upon ordering dessert that the restaurant had no more hot chocolate, which was a big disappointment, but ordered three gelati to console myself - pistacchio, hazelnut stracciatela and vanilla. The pistacchio was lacking in some pistacchio-ness, but the other two were wonderful.

All in all, a good meal, but not as exciting as my first visit several months ago.

[SobaAddict70]

Dinner at Otto last night with pim and myself. This was my first time at Otto, btw. It's threatening to become my last.

First impressions: the waitstaff was a bit pushy -- it seemed as if they wanted to turn our table quickly. Several times our waiter would happen by and interrupt our conversation without missing a beat. I wanted to say something at the time, but thought better of it.

The acoustics are atrocious. I felt wrapped around in a wall of sound -- it was a miracle that we managed to be able to hear each other. Sound level is one of my biggest pet peeves. If I can't comfortably talk to my partner(s) without having to raise my voice to rise over the background noise, then it'll be quite some time before the restaurant sees my patronage again, if ever. On that note, the food had better rise to the occasion to improve things. Unfortunately, it only comes halfway.

For appetizers, we had testa (headcheese), and eggplant caponata, anchovies with breadcrumbs and mint, mussels with roasted peppers and caramelized onions, roasted cauliflower with olives and capers. Bread and breadsticks were also served prior to the appetizers arriving. Where does the bread come from? I'm not sure of its pedigree, but it was a bit...burnt. No butter or other fat, not even a dish of EVOO was provided.

The anchovies were too acidic to eat more than a couple of bites. I'd rank in order of preference, the eggplant, the cauliflower, followed by the mussels and the anchovies last. In particular, the caponata was a nice balance of sweet, sour and piquant. The testa was a wonderful plate of luscious fattiness that left me craving more. *sigh*

Pim ordered a pizza margherita and I had the fennel with bottarga and taleggio cheese. I sort of wish I had gone a more traditional route as I felt the "otto" style pizza seemed a bit too busy on the plate, tastewise. Or perhaps it was because I was approaching my limit, having indulged in the appetizers a bit much. Or perhaps it was due to having lowered expectations from reading this thread. I will give Mario credit for at least having a crust that has some modicum of taste.

Dessert was a split between a cantaloupe sorbet and a lemon parfait of lemon curd, lemon meringue, whipped cream, limoncello and lemon granita. (The lemon parfait was a dessert special, along with a lemon and limoncello granita.) The lemon parfait was outstanding in particular, having a layering of flavors that hit you from different angles -- first sweetness, followed by an intense tang, then creaminess from the whipped cream, then a slightly bitter-intense sourness from the limoncello and the lemon granita.

As others have said, Otto deserves high marks for the appetizers and desserts. However, I won't be back for some time to come (if ever) due to the problems noted above. It's no fun to eat out and watch the clock at the same time.

Soba

Edited August 1, 2003 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[bilrus]

I went a few weeks ago on my visit to NYC without having read this thread. My wife and I had had such a good experience at Babbo, we wanted to give Mario one last shot before we left town. In a word - ehh.

Everything was in the acceptable range (except the bread, which was just not good), but nothing Pizzas, a salad) was in the outstanding range - even the gelatos (or I guess more properly gelati).

We didn't have any problem with the noise or any wiat (there were only about 4 full tables at noon on a Sunday.

It was defintiely not somewhere we would go out of our way to eat again. But we already have plans for our next trip to Babbo.

[Staats15]

I had dinner at Otto last night as well, solo, at the bar. Service was impeccable, not rushed at all, with the bartender being extremely helpful in guiding me through the wine list. I found the food to be fantastic-eggplant caponatina, swordfish, guanciale pizza(thursday special), olive oil gelato. Two quartinos of red followed by a tremendous vin santo-1996 capezzana riserva i believe(bartender quoted Bastianich as saying it was the best vin santo he's ever tasted). Strong recommendations for the guanciale pizza and olive oil gelato.

ps-How does the ricotta gelato compare to the OO?

[pim]

The dinner Soba and I had was definitely pleasant, though nothing to be wild about--but for the company of course

I think my general reaction to the meal was similar to Soba's. It was sort of hohum. The only I definitely like a lot was the Lemon Parfait.

I wasn't so wild about the eggplant caponata. I found it a bit off balance, with the sweetness a bit too assertive. I like the roasted culliflower quite a bit. I even like the anchovies, but then I like pretty much *anything* with anchovies so you probably should just ifnore me on this one.

The Testa was yummy enough, though the texture was a bit loose and the serving temperature a bit too warm, which gave it a very oily mouthfeel. It would have been better at a slightly colder temperature in my opnion.

My pizza margherita was quite nice. Crunchy--perhaps a bit too much so--and good balance on tomato sauce and tasty fresh buffala mozzarella. I would've preferred the basil to be shredded, but that's just nitpicking, isn't it?

Edited August 5, 2003 by pim (log)

[rstarobi]

Just got an email saying that Otto is now offering wine appreciation classes. There's more info on the website, which has become functional since the last time I looked at it:

Otto wine classes

[tommy]

i recently returned to Otto. on a tuesday night at 8, there was no wait. the bar area was mostly empty, but the restaurant was reasonably full and had a festive atmosphere. a few big tables of ladies, a lot of 2 tops with quiet dates, etc.

some highlights:

the cauliflower was outstanding.

the lardo pizza was pretty much as i remembered it. however, it had way too much olive oil on it for my taste. i suppose the point was to taste the olive oil, which was in fact very good, but the whole thing was too oily. the plate had oil all over it after a few minutes.

the "special" pizza that night had meatballs, tomato sauce, and cheese. the meatballs weren't what i'd call tender. they were very firm, and pretty dry. although, this, i think, was by design. they were assertively spiced and flavored, although, aside from sage, i couldn't figure out what else was there.

my friend proclaimed both "excellent".

the pizza crust still suffers from the same problem of getting a bit hard when cold. but i think that's to be expected. it's also not very salty, if at all. perhaps this is an italian thing?

on a recent trip to italy, i ordered a bottle of Fattoria Zerbina's Marzieno. this rec came from Craig Camp. the sommelier at the restaurant was extremely pleased with my selection, and we got to talking about this wine and producer. that particular bottle was a 2000. he said "if you find a 98, drink it." so when i saw a 98 on Otto's list, i ordered it immediately. the wine, while very fruity and highly extracted, was a little more tannic than i would have expected. given the quick pace of our meal (had somewhere to go), we didn't have time to really let the thing open up much or aerate. that's unfortunate. perhaps i'll return when i can enjoy it at a more leisurely pace.

also, i asked the waitress if we could have the lardo as a starter, as i had in italy several times. the waitress said "ummm, probably not. that's never been done before." i resent having to say "well could you check with the kitchen just in case", but i did. the kitchen, apparently, said "no." fair enough. i just thought i'd try. i wonder if their lardo curing process is different than that of the lardo i had in italy?

service overall was efficient and pleasant. the wine guy was nice enough to inform me that my shirt was on inside-out.

all in all, a fun, good meal.

Edited November 13, 2003 by tommy (log)

[Jason Perlow]

Otto gets the distinction of "Best Casual Restaurant" in William Grimes' year-end NY restaurant writeup in Bon Appetit.

Comments?

[tommy]

wow. maybe "best italian wine list at a casual restaurant".

methinks he needs a few more qualifiers in that "award".

Edited December 12, 2003 by tommy (log)

[sammy]

What a joke! They have pretty good antipasti, mediocre pizza and great gelato. This a "Best Casual Restaurant" does not make.

[sammy]

Otto doesn't even beat out Lupa in my opinion. Unless Grimes doesn't consider Lupa casual.

[tommy]

i do think his definition of "casual" is different than ours. clearly lupa is a better restaurant. clearly the Tasting Room is a better restaurant. clearly countless others are better.

while i'm sure he thinks Otto is special in some regard, and a great addition to that area's dining scene, perhaps a more appropriate descriptor would have been in order. unless, of course, he wanted everyone to talk about him and the restaurant, which i suppose was pretty smart.

Admin: the thread for 2004 discussion of Otto Enoteca Pizzeria may be found here.