Mario Tartaglia has some serious cred as a chef. Born in Naples and educated in Florence, he served his externship at the prestigious Cipriani Hotel in Venice before emigrating to the United States in 1969. He has been cooking for a bit more than 39 years. Starting out at a bakery on Jay Street, he purchased his first restaurant, Davinci's, in Stoneridge Plaza, after only a few years in the Rochester area. Three years ago, he decided to sell Davinci's and move north to Irondequoit. The building that houses Cipriani Italian Grill was once a seafood restaurant. Tartaglia gutted the place and created his vision of a comfortable restaurant where diners would feel happy and relaxed while lingering over the food that is his passion.
In terms of comfort, Cipriani is spot on. The waitresses are friendly, very accommodating, and clearly know their regular patrons well. But even newcomers like me are treated like old friends, and allowed the liberty of lingering over meals and desserts late into the evening (or long into the afternoon, as happened at a recent Friday lunch). Painted in mellow earth tones and suffused with soft, warm light, the large dining room radiates a cozy calm. There is nothing jarring or surprising here, nothing to distract you from your dining companions. Two hours pass unnoticed and agreeably. A first glass of wine becomes a second, a second a third, and the cares of the week just melt away.
As I said, there was nothing at Cipriani to distract me from the pleasure of my dining companions' company. Tartaglia is a very good chef, and his cooking is technically accomplished - but none of my meals here excited me. There was never a bad moment, but neither was there a moment when I had to stop talking in order to savor a particular dish or sort out complex flavors. This was an entirely solid experience, but not a memorable one.
Portions at Cipriani, as befits a restaurant in the tradition of Italian steakhouses, are generous bordering on huge. The sautéed calamari ($9), for instance, was served in a 14-inch pasta bowl heaped to overflowing with rings of nicely fried rings of tender squid topped with spicy pepperoncini, kalamata olives, red onion, chopped tomato, and a generous handful of grated asiago cheese. This was an appetizer that could only be shared. Two of us were barely equal to the task of finishing it, and even then it stayed on the table through most of the meal, being revisited in the short lull between courses or a shift in the topic of conversation.
All dinners come with a choice of soup or salad, both good. The house salad is the usual chilled plate of greens with one grape tomato, one slice of cucumber, croutons, and crumbled bleu cheese with a side of Italian salad dressing. The soup was the stronger choice. Tartaglia's Italian wedding soup is rich and hearty, full of tender little meatballs and veggies in what tastes like a homemade stock. You'd be well advised to take it easy on the appetizers, soup and salad, though: the entrees will satisfy, and perhaps overwhelm, even the most robust appetite.
On our first visit, my companion ordered Tartaglia's own chicken Lina ($15), boneless chicken breast sautéed with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, and broccoli, tossed in a "white wine sauce" and served over ziti. Although I could see the various elements of the dish - the red of peppers, the green of broccoli, the pale green artichoke leaves - I couldn't taste anything but the sauce. Butter, garlic, white wine, more butter, and asiago conspired in a sauce that could mask any but the strongest ingredients. The dish was indisputably tasty - we kept dipping bread in it off and on all evening - but the elements of it were lost.
The pork bracciole ($15) was more successful overall. Bracciole is usually made with cuts of meat that take well to braising, so the choice of pork tenderloin - a meat that benefits from quick, hot cooking - seemed a bit risky. Tartaglia stuffs his version with prosciutto, escarole, a nice sharp provolone, and whole hardboiled eggs. Cut in half, it makes a very pretty cross section, and the meat is surprisingly tender. As with the chicken Lina, though, the sauce - in this case marinara - overwhelms the delicate flavors underneath it. The chef's marinara has a staggering amount of dried basil, and the tomatoes themselves have a bit more tinny acid than I like in this fresh sauce. Over pasta it was tasty and satisfying. Over the pork, it was a flavor sledgehammer.
Heavy sauces seem to be the rule at Cipriani. The "Dijon sauce" atop the veal Dijon ($18) effectively smothered the meat, artichoke hearts, and mushrooms underneath it in a blanket of heavy cream with a nice mustard and white wine bite. This is a pity, because the cutlets of veal were beautifully thin and looked like they had been nicely fried before the sauce soaked them.
Ironically, the one dish that traditionally has a heavy sauce appeared almost unadorned. Steak au poivre ($24) is served with a quantity of rich cream sauce made with the pan drippings from the seared meat and either brandy, red wine, or cognac. There was no sauce apparent on the surface of the beautiful New York strip steak that was delivered to me. Instead, a pool of remarkably light brandy sauce covered the bottom of the plate, soaking into a heap of oven-roasted potatoes. The meat was topped with sautéed mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes along with the usual peppercorns. The steak, which Tartaglia cuts himself and then tenderizes in a process called jaccarding, was one of the tastiest I've had of late. Although it was solidly medium rather than the medium rare that I ordered, it was still tender, juicy, and very beefy without the graininess that you often encounter with overcooked beef.
I've heard it said that the best service is the service that you don't notice at all. It might also be true that the best meal is the one where the company far outshines the food. The only lasting impression that Cipriani left on me was that I had had a very nice time catching up with my friends and family, and that I was warm, full, and contented. Perhaps that's the way it should be.
Cipriani Italian Grill
155 Pattonwood Dr.
266-2990
Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Saturday 4-10 p.m., 4-8 p.m.