Prosecco Review

I took my wife to trendy Italian spot, Prosecco, for her birthday. The plan was to have a late light dinner, but I'm not sure how I thought that Italian comfort food would be light. In any case, when we walked in for our 9:00 PM reservation, it was immediately clear how trendy Prosecco was. It was filled with a foodie crowd; and even with our late reservation, it took over half an hour to be seated. By that time we were desperately hoping to be blown away by the food.

The first thing you notice about Prosecco is how impeccably Italian it is. You're not served family size portions, but the place is bustling and gourmet Italian food is prepared by real Italians and served by real Italians. Typically when we order, I relay both our choices to our server; however, in this instance, I was cut off right after I ordered my dish when my server immediately turned to my wife. Apparently, he had been put off that I had not allowed her to order first...if he had waited a moment he would have realized how we work. I rectified this by placing my wife's order first for dessert.

We began the meal with drinks at the bar, and bread was served as soon as we were seated. The bread came with an unidentifiable savory sauce with a bit of tang and a enjoyable freshness from celery elements. It was both unique and remarkably enjoyable. The two types of bread were both certainly good enough to keep me busy until our appetizer arrived. Of course, by this time we were starving, and I was having difficulty keeping myself from dipping further into the bread basket.

It was a little while before our Bufala Mozarella antipasti arrived. By this time, we had been unimpressed by the wait and hoped to be amazed by the appetizer everyone seemed to be having. The fresh mozarella was served atop heirloom tomatoes with bits of what they called balsamic viniagrette caviar. The best way to describe this dish is to tell you what I told my wife: "This is some good cheese." The viniagrette caviar is simply gelatinous balls of viniagrette which add a nice sweet finish to the freshness of the overall dish. The antipasti was probably my favorite part of the meal. I want some now.

My second favorite part of the meal was probably the wines. While awaiting our cocktails we were served the house prosecco. This clean bubbly started sweet and finished neat. My rosso was a well rounded syrah that wasn't dry or fruity and complex enough to be everything in between. I will be emailing the restaurant to track down both of these. On the other hand, when I ordered my wife a Bellini, we were told the bar had ran out of peach nectar, and she ended up with a pedestrian mimosa instead.

Our main course led to further disappointment when I was told that I couldn't have my risotto because they ran out of rice... How was that even possible? The Orecchiette Tartufette I went with instead turned out to be a great decision. Pasta in black truffle cream and white truffle oil is about as decadent as it sounds. Bits of fresh asparagus and sundried tomato were a nice touch. I thought it was really good, but my wife went as far as to say that she would return to Prosecco just for this dish. Needless to say, I let her have most of it.

Her dish in comparison, the Cavatelli con Gamberi e Zafferano, was simply too light. The riccota dumplings and shrimp were prepared well, but we were both underwhelmed by the saffron broth. This dish certainly fell short of our expectations. Both dishes however have firmly ingrained in me the opinion that all pastas should have some form of asparagus involved.

From carbs to more carbs, we ordered a hazelnut semifreddo and ricotta mascarpone cheesecake for dessert. Alas, no semifreddo. That's right, a third dish that was unavailable. The torta ricotta was again as extraordinarily fresh as the rest of our dishes. A touch of lemon helped the combination of cheeses keep it light. This almost fluffy cheesecake mirrored our overall experience at Prosecco: really good but hardly life altering.

The overall freshness and comfort feel of Prosecco will have us giving them another chance. Our server was very gracious about all the shortcomings and did provide us with a complimentary dessert wine; although, for all our troubles, I expected a little bit more. In the end, no bellini, no rice, and no semifreddo is pretty tough to swallow. Prosecco is probably much better than it was to us, and what we had was just good enough to warrant another chance. Eventually.