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“Gemma”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Italian	East Village	Moderate	Good

o proscuitto and arugula ($15), and spicy sausage and onion ($14). We went for the four seasons—topped with basil, artichokes, proscuitto and mushrooms, and were quite pleased. I’d eat this pizza with a salad at the bar any night of the week.

The kitchen also turns out some surprisingly simple dishes from that wood oven. Whole branzino is filleted and roasted on a cedar plank and served with sautéed broccoli rabe. It doesn’t even need a squeeze of lemon—it’s just a naked, beautiful fish that’s mostly left alone, and rightly so. The roasted Amish chicken is also a startlingly bare preparation (it’s Amish after all) that manages to impress with its golden, almost crunchy skin and dense, creamy, moist flesh, over lemony sautéed spinach. Gnocchi Bolognese ($15) is not exactly summery, but it’s damn good, though I’d skip the rigatoni with proscuitto cotto, cream and peas ($16), which is fine if you’ve been fasting for days and need a week’s worth of calories in one dish, but it’s really a bit too heavy and almost clunky.

Dessert offers the important (and, quite frankly, required) chance to experience something called a “calzone di nutella ($10).” This dessert stromboli—a massive half-moon shaped pizza/pastry— is served on a wooden pizza plank, dusted with powered sugar and filled up with shameless amounts of oozing hot nutella and chocolate (and a little ricotta). Alison was beside herself and seemed to retreat into her own private world as she scooped up molten bites of this wonderland known as a calzone. Let’s just sat this is one dessert that should be eaten with a special friend in private (unless you’d like to be in a Frank Bruni article about inappropriate dining room behavior).

As we worked on our calzone, Ivo came back over to check in on us. His head was tilted, his hip was swished, and jutted out to the side. “How is everything lay-deeeez?” he asked, with a smile. “Ivo, this calzone is amazing,” we mumbled in between bites, with streaks of melted chocolate no doubt oiling our cheeks. “I know! Isn’t it fabulous?” he said, as he offered coffee and tea, and then turned (read: pirouetted) away. But as he sashayed over to his other tables, Debbie noticed something more than a hip swish. “Did he just curtsy?” Yes, indeed, he did. Love him.
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Posted: August 6, 2007

Other restaurants in East Village :
+ Yujin-- Closed   + Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar   + Mermaid Inn   + Five Points   + Lavagna   + Five Points   + Bond Street   + Jewel Bako   + Alphabet Kitchen   + In Vino   + Bao 111   + Chikalicious   + Il Buco   + Hearth   + Lima's Taste   + Mercadito   + Hedeh   + Momofuku   + Una Pizza Napoletana   + Winebar   + Uovo-- CLOSED   + Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction   + Gotham Bar & Grill   + Colors   + Chinatown Brasserie   + Knife and Fork   + European Union-- NEW CHEF; SEE APRIL 2007 Review   + Aroma Kitchen and Winebar   + Stand   + European Union   + Mercat   + Gemma   + Back Forty   + The Smith   + Seymour Burton   + Belcourt   + Graffiti   + The Redhead   + Double Crown    + Apiary   + Joe Doe   + Apiary by guest reviewer Kiri Tannenbaum   + DBGB   + Northern Spy   + Goat Town   + Saxon + Parole   + Il Buco Alimentari & Vineria   + Acme   + Calliope   + Nicoletta   + JEPPNEY by Claire Jaffe   + Feast   

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