Ristorante Morini is the city’s most misnamed ristorante. It sounds like Osteria Morini, superstar chef Michael White’s ear-splitting, cheaper downtown showcase for his decidedly uptown, singular interpretation of Italian regional cuisine.
But Ristorante Morini is a farther-uptown version of Marea and Ai Fiori (White’s great, 3-star places in Midtown) — it’s not as pretty as flagship Marea, but just as expensive. The food’s every bit as bold even if White’s grand gestures no longer seem quite as original as they once did. It isn’t his fault, but ours for demanding that everything new be, like, totally new.
While I’ve had a few wobbly dishes at Marea and Ai Fiori lately, I had only one among 20-plus at Ristorante Morini. From lemon-lilted, cured sardine crudo to deceptively simple shellfish spaghetti in rarefied olive-oily shellfish broth, it was one ooh- and ahh-inducer after another.
A new restaurant needs a “signature” breakthrough dish to put it on the map — like Marea’s fusilli with octopus and bone marrow. Ristorante Morini offers several candidates. But the map that matters most is the Upper East Side above 72nd Street, which needed a first-class, modern-Italian restaurant for grown-ups.
White calls it a “neighborhood” place. Smart call: Even many of his most ardent fans won’t travel this far north to eat. But who needs them? The house is filled nightly with locals richer than you or I who pour in as late as 10 p.m. Who said Upper East Side palates are timid?
Nor does the house need the blessing of pundits certain to find something “missing” so far uptown. More unctuous innards slyly concealed, and crackling-breadcrumb pasta that’s been copied by every Italian chef in town! I admit to sharing the impulse to knock him down a peg. Only the truth stood in my way.
Most of the 165 seats are on the long, L-shaped second floor with large windows over Madison Avenue. It’s comfy and luxe (white tablecloths, leather banquettes), but irksomely plain in its mahogany-wall and beige skin. A staffer hinted more color’s on the way. We stand ready to alert the rest of the media.
Guests are flatteringly lit in their after-work, dressed-down finery by pointy-faceted chandeliers that resemble Maggie Simpson’s head. They do a fine job illumining the dishes, which one well-traveled waiter was pleased to review for us.
He was “very impressed with the menu,” he shared, and averred that owner Altamarea Group “is supposed to be such a good company” that he might stay awhile.
We were glad for him. But gladder to meet lumache, a literally nutty fantasia of herb- and marsala-braised snails, robiola fresca and Parmesan cheese, bone marrow, porcini mushroom and shaved black truffles, arrayed around almond milk sformato that only looks like tofu. I nominate it as the breakout dish.
Or might it be anatra — duck breast turned to butter in a Piedmontese-inspired, finanziera-style sauce made from huckleberry and cotechino sausage. The fruit doesn’t merely tame the meat’s unctuousness, it sets spinning a whirl of soul-satisfying, wintry essences that got me through the bitter night.
Seafood’s as strong as Marea’s. Couscous Trapanese with spada (grilled swordfish) evoked an idealized Sicily. I don’t usually regard delicate Arctic char as a strong cold-weather element, but pretty-in-pink salmerino made the case for it in purée of brown butter and chestnut.
White is a pasta master, of course, and the lineup is predictably strong. I was surprised to hear he uses “a little” cream in ferratini alla carbonara, a creamless classic built on cheese and egg — but the spark of assertive cracked black pepper and guanciale justified anything he wanted to do.
Desserts were eloquent riffs on old favorites, minus odd herbs and silly deconstruction. Mascarpone cheese torte came with grapefruit Prosecco sorbet that blew away the endless-winter blahs.
The only flop in four pleasurable meals was the first item I tasted, back in mid-December: uncharacteristically underseasoned and rubbery tuna crudo. But executive chef Gordon Finn’s kitchen swiftly got its game together.
Will it last? The last restaurant on the site, Centolire, started out with a bang in 2001 but lost energy long before it lost customers. White has an army on duty at Ristorante Morini, and I hope the occupation lasts forever. The East 80s might never eat the same way again.