The Strong Buzz

“Ristorante Rafele”

August 2, 2012

Raffaele Ronca, the chef behind the newly opened Rafele on Seventh Avenue South, came to New York from Italy to become an actor. Despite his matinee looks and thespian ways, he, like the tribes would-be actors who came before him, wound up in the restaurant biz instead. In his case, it truly was the logical thing to do. If he couldn’t book a Verizon commercial, he might as well make a few bucks skinning a salmon or butchering a pig. After all, he was raised in a family of butchers and fishermen in Naples. Working in his uncle’s restaurant, he was making pasta by the time he was a teenager. So when the stage door slammed shut, the kitchen door naturally swung open.

Since arriving in New York at the age of 21, he has worked steadily around town, first garnering the attention of the foodie community as Chef du Cuisine at Bellavitae and then as Executive Chef at Palma on Cornelia Street. He’s now partnered with Romeo Palmisano, an old friend from Naples, to open a restaurant of his own.

To be honest, I’m not sure what kind of an actor Rafele is, but if he can read sides anywhere near as well as he can cook, those folks at CAA may want to take the Red Eye and head over to Seventh Avenue South and Morton Street tout de suite. There they will find his lovely restaurant, with its magnificent open kitchen, tiled in white and cerulean blue, anchored by a fiery pizza hearth, imported from Italy in one fell swoop, all 700 tons of it. (What’s that cost to FedEx?) A display of the Greenmarket proportion is set out on the kitchen’s center island: weathered wooden bowls spilling over with lemons, artichokes, tomatoes, purslane, fairytale eggplant, zucchini, and twisted strands of gnarly broad beans. You’ll wish you could bring a basket and shop. Terra cotta floors and tall sprays of sunflowers complete the still life setting. Farmhouse tables are set up around the glorious kitchen stage, not unlike a theater in the round. An oversized Venetian marble bar, topped with a generous spread of marinating olives and fresh breads, offers a soothing perch to take it all in over a pitcher of Lambrusco sangria (brilliant!) or a couple of Negronis. It’s a vacation just to have a seat.

But do eat. If he’s making them on the night you’re in, start with the little fried pizzas the size of doll’s saucers, painted with sweet tomato sauce, bubbles of milky mozzarella and torn basil leaves. Pass around a plate of arancini, lightly fried balls that marry creamy risotto with four melting cheeses ($13). This is one relationship that will not end in divorce. You’ve never had meatballs like his polpette ($13). Made from veal and pork, and napped in tomato sauce, they are oval in shape, and slightly flattened, like a meatball that desperately wants to become a slider. You won’t care what they are or hope to be; you will just want them.

Rafele has been cooking pasta almost as long as he’s been alive, so you’re in good hands here. He’s doing to gnocchi what April Bloomfield did for gnudi. These fork-printed clouds, just as light and airy as a breeze, are served with cherry tomatoes and basil, with melted tallegio. Spinach ravioli are plumped up with buffalo ricotta and sauced in brown butter and sage ($17), while house made tagliolini gets an earthy turn with forest mushrooms and truffle pate ($16).  

You may think you don’t like swordfish (M/P), but you’ve never had Rafele’s swordfish. It’s sliced thin, so it’s not so much a steak but a filet, then drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, marked on the grill, cooked lightly so its flesh is moist, sweet, and flaky and served with tomatoes, garlic, capers, and olives, and a little mound of spinach. Steak, too, gets treated right ($27). Seared so its crust is salty and its center pink and juicy, it is set up with salsa verde and nothing more. The steak is seriously good, but the nothing more part is a bummer (though classically Italian), so you will want to add some sides (all $7). Perhaps some potatoes (they come oven-roasted with rosemary and Himalayan salt), or some broccoli rabe with pepperoncino and Cerignola olives.

The wine list, by Pierluigi Ossani, is terrific. It takes Italy on from North to South, and offers a nice selection of wines, but I’d like to see a few more options under $40. He served us a wonderful pairing with our meal, starting off with glasses of Moscato Giallo from Castelfeder, then Greco di Tufo from Terre d’Ora, and a Vermentino from Pala. A Pinto Nero from Maso Michei and an Aglianico from Feudi finished us off. Well, that’s not all together true. The tiramisu finished us off. As did the cheesecake.

These are the kinds of dessert my dad loves, but more often than not, I’ve skipped anything in this vain. For one, tiramisu has always seemed dated to me, and the last one I had tasted like some vaguely coffee-flavored baby food. And cheesecake can be so cold and grainy. But there are times when I am wrong. Horribly wrong. And this is one of them. Rafele has restored these desserts to their place on the shelf of classics to honor and respect. In my book, they’re hanging out right next to Calliope’s baba au rhum.

Now take a breath. Sit back and take a look around the restaurant. Friends are passing around baskets of warm bread and olive oil, platters of fried calamari, tossed together in crunchy heaps tangled with zucchini, fennel and sage, and bowls of roasted cauliflower, speckled with black currants, pine nuts, and bread crumbs ($13). A group of girlfriends are air kissing and congregating at the chef’s table, toasting to something. A job? A proposal? Who knows. Who cares. They are happy. A couple from the neighborhood catches up at the bar over many glasses of that Lambrusco sangria. There is a sense of sweetness and ease to the restaurant. In some ways it is the antithesis of hot spots where the energy, the hype, the noise level, is so high that it shatters any possibility of restoration with your meal. And sometimes, at the end of the day, you need that. You need to be fed, nurtured, and restored. This is that place. And to think--we could’ve lost Rafele to Hollywood.

Ristorante Rafele is located at 29 Seventh Avenue South at Morton Street, 212-242-1999.

Andrea Strong