‘THE baby is cute,” the woman at new Alloro was saying to the man at her table.
“Honey, every baby is cute.”
“Some babies aren’t cute.”
And even more restaurants aren’t. But “creative Italian” Alloro (305 E. 77th St., [212] 535-2866), all of two weeks old, is adorable. It’s also strange, perplexing and often wonderful. Five pasta dishes I had there just might be the best five I’ve had at any one place this year.
In a decade of writing about restaurants, I’ve been careful never to tout a favorite new joint close to my home. For one thing, my normally infallible judgment wilts when affordable dishes of any cuisine are a five-minute stroll away.
And even when a new spot truly deserves praise, a good write-up can wreck a 50-seat, family-run operation that’s suddenly overrun – leaving patrons to mutter, “What the hell was Cuozzo thinking?”
But I’m irrationally taken with Alloro’s screaming-green floor and chairs in two tiny rooms, and black, neo-Goth wall sconces that flicker from bright to dim and back.
In a neighborhood smothered in penne puttanesca, you’d never guess what’s coming out of the kitchen at poor Alloro, which is blockaded by a condo-construction crater on one side and chemical tanks, dumpsters and trailers in the street.
When it comes to pasta ($14-$17), chef/owner Salvatore Corea, who’s also the chef at Bocca and Cacio e Pepe downtown, does glorious things with all things green. Arugula pesto on fusilli and fava bean pesto on house-made chitarra with langoustine are summery, tongue-tingling revelations.
There was even briefly a “pasta” without pasta, just green pea puree with prosciutto foam and black rice crackers – yanked from the menu, Corea admits, because, “I didn’t sell a lot.” Now demoted to an amuse-bouche (without crackers), it’s a soup as refreshing as my favorite appetizer, crystalline tomato tartar with buffalo mozzarella and the only basil sorbet I’ve ever liked.
“Fried spaghetti” in light tomato and basil is not the leftover Italian staple where day-old pasta is sauteed to impart crispness. Corea cooks spaghetti till it’s “mushy” and then deep-fries it in olive oil until it’s rigid.
“I was a little scared at the beginning,” he chuckled – but the result, as crunchy as Chinese bird’s nest made from noodles, made for rare tactile pleasure. The spaghetti is DeCecco, proving what miracles can come of store-bought products in the right hands.
“Alloro” means laurel, and the name speaks to Corea’s love for earth-borne essences. They pop up in entrees ($23-$26) too “creative” for their own good, like breaded salmon stuffed with buffalo mozzarella, celery leaves and black truffles and lavender-crusted swordfish steak.
Although not all the combinations are my cup of tea, they’re too irksomely well-executed to ridicule. So are desserts embracing laurel bay leaf, watermelon and cantaloupe gelatin.
The wine list needs work, but you can bring your own for a $20 corkage fee; I suggest you bring your own glasses too, because Alloro’s are too small.
A bathroom sign advises customers not just to wash their hands, but also to open the door with one’s “protected” hand inside one’s sleeve – yet another Alloro quirk. Good things some times come in strange packages.