Decarli
By David & Susan Greenberg
davidandsusangreenberg@gmail.com
Mediterranean Decarli restaurant is where to go when you’re weary of keeping up with novel cuisines like food native to Pitcairn Island or Neptune. This is classic food, deep, complex, that must be done perfectly. Only truly knowledgeable hands can craft it well. Luckily those are just the hands in Decarli’s kitchen.
Drinking a noble Pinot Noir, we started with octopus cooked sous-vide, then charred, served atop a Romesco sauce and a chimichurri sauce with chunks of fingerling potato. Delicious!
Then two main courses. 1/ Chicken-Under-A-Brick, seldom served because of its labor intensivity, with a crackling skin, stuffed with Fontina cheese which oozed out, decked with peach slices.
And, 2/ Hanger Steak (the “butcher’s cut”) in a gorgonzola sauce atop perfect broccolini and a nimbus of fried onion.
Both these dishes could go wrong in countless ways but the kitchen failed not. We finished with affogato made with housemade stracciatella, vanilla ice cream laced with nubs of chocolate, doused with espresso.
Not pretentious, this is the kind of restaurant for a date or to take your kids when it's time to let them know what food and plating and service are really about. Portions are large (two can split most entrees) and prices are reasonable.