Devise & Conquer
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Even before seeing a menu, one sign to the first-time diner at Porchetta that it’s not an everyday Italian restaurant is how intently the other customers are studying theirs. There aren’t a lot of dishes, but every one presents hard-to-visualize permutations of ingredients. Wading through its offerings — like “candied olives” and “melted cauliflower” — is a bit like exploring a strange country. Fortunately, the local dishes are delicious.
Porchetta opened this summer on Smith Street, another Italian restaurant on a fertile culinary row. It was modern but not particularly sophisticated until Jason Neroni took the kitchen’s reins in October. Previously, Mr. Neroni was cooking at 71 Clinton Fresh Food, a bellwether of creative, exciting Lower East Side dining that closed this spring.
The bandwagon of “creative cooking” is occasionally bogged down by hangers-on to whom “creative” just means unexpected. At Porchetta, Mr. Neroni’s sound instinct for invention reminds one that unfamiliar culinary juxtapositions can also be delicious; nothing’s shocking, but the best dishes here happen to be the most intricately composed ones.
A smooth smoked sunchoke soup ($11), which the server pours over cool sheep’s milk ricotta, is magnificent: a silky, refined take on the nutty, earthy-tasting tuber. The fresh, tart cheese works in a keen balance with the soup, along with raisins’ dense sweetness, a rich dose of pancetta, and brisk snips of chive. A Brussels sprout appetizer ($9) works along similar lines. The basic vegetable is allowed to shine, but it’s buttressed from various angles: with pork belly for salt and crunch; with a poached egg for luxurious gloss, and with a spicy aioli whose vinegary edge carries the dish over the top to excellence. Multipart harmony likewise adds drama to more ordinary starters, like the sweetly braised beets, creamy fried goat-cheese croquettes, and crunchy radishes and greens that make up a salad ($9); or the coarse fig jam and crushed pistachios accenting a deep-flavored, light-textured chicken liver mousse ($8).
The restaurant is on the three-course Italian plan of starters, pastas, and mains; but with tastefully modest portions and no dish over $22, going whole-hog is quite manageable. The best of the pastas is tender orecchiette ($10), swathed in seasonally delicious creamy pumpkin, with blue cheese melting throughout and garlicky slices of sopressata on top. The sharp flavors of the cheese and the meat are a surprise, but it’s the sturdy, layered flavor, not the surprises, that make this a success. Delicately, thrillingly, a single large raviolo ($11.50) overflows with yolk as soon as you slice into it, flooding out to mingle into a dark, super-savory conserve of wild mushrooms and olives. But a simpler dish, just short lengths of pasta coated with fresh-tasting tomato sauce and mozzarella ($10), was unimpressive, without any of the depth or complexity of flavor of the others. Rounds of jalapeño laid on top are a stinging surprise that add nothing to the dish as a whole.
The namesake porchetta ($22) is also a little too plain for its own good. The thick slices of roast pork are tender, but their delicate flavor never really emerges, and dousings of preserved tomato and aged balsamic do little to bring it out. But the flavor in a sliced leg of lamb ($20) can hardly be restrained: luxuriously buttery “melted” cauliflower purée pools around it, and an anchovy-mint salad adds a pert accent that could be Italian or Vietnamese. An unusual preparation of short ribs of beef ($20) gives the dish a steak-like appeal. The braised meat has a crunchy, savory top crust that contrasts with its becomingly fatty middle, and wears a steak’s accessories: lumps of pungent Gorgonzola, and a mustard-green cream that’s a lot like creamed spinach, as well as those firm, faintly sweet candied kalamatas.
Porchetta’s desserts have all the smart complexity of the rest of the meal. A buttermilk panna cotta ($6) pulls no punches — it’s far more sour than sweet, like drinking a rich glass of buttermilk. Just a glaze of amber moscato lends a little sweetness. Another night, the panna cotta was just a bit sweeter, flavored with saffron and moated with dark, sneakily chile-spiked chocolate. Olive oil pound cake ($7) gives a more traditional finish, with a soothing side of lavender gelato.
The complexities of the cooking would benefit from a lighter, suppler red wine than any Porchetta offers. Even the lone pinot, Australia’s Feral Fox ($48), has a hot, sweet edge uncharacteristic of the breed. Arneis ($9/$32), a less-common grape from Piedmont, has a slow-developing elegance that stands out among the whites. A “maiale margarita” ($12), made with fresh lime and tangerine juices, is served in a glass rimmed with crumbs of pork crackling as well as salt. The subtle effect is just a smoky savor behind the tequila.
Porchetta neatly brings together two ideals: In the comfortably unassuming setting one expects from neighborhood Italian, it offers modern twists that are not just thought-provoking but mouthwatering as well.
Porchetta (241 Smith St. at Douglass Street, Brooklyn, 718-237-9100).