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“Aurora”


  Occasion: Cuisine: Area: Cost: Rating:
  Night Out Italian Soho Moderate Great

ccardo’s antipasti talents are considerable. Take the artichokes ($10), crisped up just at the edges and left tender in the center, served with white bean salad dolled up with mint and shaved Percorino. There was also a beautiful hand-cut beef crudo ($14), what you and I might call steak tartare, seasoned well with salt, pepper, a drizzle of 20-year old balsamic and a few hunks of beautifully salty aged Parmesan. A salad of porcini mushrooms reminded me of the one I had in Gubio. The mushrooms were meaty and lovely, dressed in olive oil and lemon and bedded on a bright little salad of field greens crowned with a veil of summer truffles. Even the beet salad was impressive. Roasted orange and red roots were showered with roasted pistachios and tucked into duo of ricotta cheeses—lumps of creamy ricotta and slices of firm and tangy ricotta salata. The contrast in flavors in textures was just terrific.

It’s probably not a shock to learn that Riccardo’s also got a gift for pasta. We had two of his housemade options, the gnudi ($30), which was a special that night, and a signature, the raviolini del Plin ($16). If you’re only experience with gnudi is from the Spotted Pig, well, you’re doing fine, but I should mention that these are a bit different. While April fashions hers simply from sheep’s milk ricotta that’s been dredged in a little semolina before cooking in brown butter, these are more complex. First they are larger, shaped more like ping pong balls than quarters. And while they are made with sheep’s milk ricotta, these dumplings also pack in black kale and Swiss chard, so there’s almost a mini-torta inside made of layers of vegetables and cheese. The raviolini are wonderful as well. They arrive shaped like rectangular envelopes filled with a little swell of Castelmagno, a cheese from Piedmont that’s rather ripe and tangy, and makes for a nice backdrop to a sauce of sautéed wild mushrooms.

His signature entrée is a 10-hour slow-roasted pork belly with white beans, broccoli rabe and caramelized apples ($20), but we were feeling quite hot that night, and a big ole pork belly was not calling us. What did call us was the lemon sole ($23), and while sole will never be pork belly, this was quite a fish. It’s cut into inch-thick filets and dusted in polenta and pan fried so it’s got a soft crunch on the outside that reveals sweet silky fish beneath. ... [more, click below]

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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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