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“Porcupine-- CLOSED”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Soho	Moderate	Great

d then left to collapse. On the pick up, Matt finishes it with more cream, so all the airy spaces of the soufflé get filled up with sweet cream. It tastes like a Yorkshire pudding, and it is fantastic, but not for light eaters. It is served with veal cheeks that are braised until melting in Mersault (a white wine). “If I used red wine, you would be nodding off in your bowl,” Matt explained.

There are two pastas on the menu, and they are both made by Molly Smith, who was Matt’s salad cook when he was at Quilty’s Loft. Kiri and I were not sure we could eat both, and so we ordered half portions of each. The first, a rabbit ragu nicely fleshed out over wide strips of hand cut pasta ($11/$17) filled the dining room with the intoxicating aroma of rosemary and thyme. (Or was it the wine that was intoxicating?) Anyway, Molly’s ragu is not your typical smothered sauce—it is refined and delicate and surprisingly light—an adaptation of a traditional wild hare recipe that uses cocoa and dark spices like cloves, cinnamon, and juniper. The meat was tender and sweet and perfumed with herbs, the pasta was just right—dente, not too soft, not too firm. Her baked rotolo ($10/$16) makes Matt’s celery root pudding look like spa food. She curls ribbons of pasta into a pair of spirals, and fills the rolls up with fresh ricotta, caramelized onions, currants, toasted almond, and herbs. The spirals are baked in the oven until bubbly, and presented in a cast iron skillet, making you feel like you are dining at a log cabin somewhere in the hills of Tuscany. When we started in on the pastas our plan was to have a few bites, and save room for entrees. Instead, we annihilated both of them. As they say, the greatest plans.

We wanted to eat more, but there was just no room left at The Inn. We had shamelessly gorged on pasta. But if you exercise some restraint (or go with a bigger group), you can treat yourselves to robust and rustic fare like roast suckling pig with apple and celery knob ($22), oven roasted halibut with artichoke puree, pancetta and toasted hazelnuts ($24), crispy mustard braised breast of veal with lemon pickles (a dish I have heard raves about, $18), and a mussel and black fish stew with almond milk and acorn squash. There is also $12 brunch on the weekends— thick cut French toast with an almond apricot shingle, warm stone-ground white polenta with shaved bittersweet chocolate, poached ... [more, click below]

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Posted: November 21, 2004

Other restaurants in Soho :
+ Balthazar   + Savoy   + Blue Ribbon   + Lupa   + Public   + Kittichai   + Lure Fishbar   + Barmarche   + Porcupine-- CLOSED   + Ama   + La Esquina   + Jerry's- Closed Now   + The Tasting Room   + Papatzul   + Shorty's.32   + The Monday Room   + Ed's Lobster Bar   + Aurora   + Provence   + Tailor   + Hundred Acres   + Delicatessen, By Guest Reviewer Julie Besonen   + The Mott   + The Dutch   + Cherrywood, by Guest Reviewer Dara Pollak   

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