Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

** Abruzzi
1500 Evergreen Road
(502) 245-7121
Website: http://www.abruzzirestaurant.com/
(Site inoperative as of July 2001)

Judged on atmosphere alone, Abruzzi may be one of the most pleasant dining venues in the metropolitan area. Located in the historic old interurban train station in Anchorage, a leafy and affluent suburb with a distinct Nineteenth Century air, the restaurant's large plate-glass windows virtually bring the village's parklike setting indoors, and its designers had the wisdom to keep its burgundy-and-ivory decor simple and discreet so as not to war with the natural surroundings.

The service is excellent, too. Sadly, however, I've found its Italian-American fare variable at best. Never awful, rarely outstanding, it veers unpredictably from quite good to frankly disappointing.

Add a few oddities like a faint but persistent smell of sewage that permeated the premises during a recent visit, and the rather lonely feeling of nearly empty dining rooms on a midweek evening, and it becomes difficult to award Abruzzi a high rating, even though its happy ambience predisposes me to like the place.

Abruzzi offers alfresco patio dining when weather permits, and there's a cozy bar in addition to the three dining rooms, of which an octagonal pergola-style room with a cathedral ceiling and huge windows may be the most inviting. The burgundy walls are decorated with a few small paintings and one large one, a dramatic framed rendition of God and Adam's hands touching from the ceiling of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. Sturdy tables are draped in off-white oilcloth and set with stainless flatware, bud vases with fresh flowers and votive candles in cut-glass and brass holders. Tony Bennett croons softly in the background, a choice of recorded dinner music that somehow seems to fit.

The menu goes on at length about the beautiful scenery and delicious food and wine of Abruzzi, the restaurant's namesake province, a beautiful if mostly rural region that spans the mountains and the Adriatic seacoast in eastern Italy, opposite Rome. Which makes it a bit surprising that there's nothing specifically regional about the bill of fare or the wine list; the menu features standard Italian-American dishes, and the wine list offers a short selection of mostly mass-market American wines with only a few Italian items and none from Abruzzi, not even a modest Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.

Seven appetizers range from $4.95 (for fried mozzarella) to $8.95 (for a variety of dishes including an antipasto plate and crab and lobster cakes). Five salads are $2.25 to $7.95, and a half-dozen sandwiches are all $6.95 (for standards including chicken Parmesan, a meatball sub and Italian roast beef and onions).

About two dozen dinner entrees are sorted into pastas (from $9.95 for linguini and meatballs or fettuccine Alfredo to $14.95 for fettuccine with tenderloin tips or tortellini alla panna e pesto), seafood items ($14.95 for grouper Francese and $15.95 for grilled salmon), and "pranzo" (from $13.95 for chicken marsala, piccata, parmesan or florentine to $17.95 for filleto di manzo, tournedos Rossini, osso buco or leg of lamb.

The wine list, as noted, is relatively short, with just eight modest wines listed by the glass at rather high markups (from $4.75 for several low-end items like Mondavi Woodbridge and Beringer White Zinfandel) to $6.75 (for BV Carneros Chardonnay). The bottle list is a bit less profiteering, with markups at an acceptable two-times retail at most, with about three dozen mostly mass-market selections from $16 (for Bolla Chardonnay or Sutter Home White Zinfandel) to $61 (for a Banfi Brunello), not counting the mandatory Dom Perignon bubbly for well-heeled celebrators at $175.

I passed on the $19 wicker-wrapped Chianti but found a good deal in an Italian-style California wine, Chappellet 1998 Napa Valley Sangiovese, which at $33 was well under twice retail. A dark reddish-purple wine, it was loaded with the tart black-cherry aroma and flavors that you'd expect in a Tuscan red, but with the up-front fruit and aromatic oak qualities that say "California."

A complimentary ration of garlic bread was good enough, an Italian-American take on "Texas toast." Thick-sliced slabs from a smallish white loaf were drenched in garlicky butter and dusted with dried herbs.

A shared appetizer, calamari Abruzzi ($7.95) was pretty good. The addition of sauteed mixed green and red bell peppers, spicy giardinera peppers and onions added flavor and texture interest, and the bits of squid were lightly breaded and toothy-tender if not crisply fried; a bit of excess oil pooled at the bottom of the plate. An odd "fishy" smell accompanied the dish to the table, hinting that something, somewhere on the plate should probably be avoided. Oddly enough, we could never find its source, and all the squid seemed fresh.

It came with a side dish of home-style Italian-American marinara sauce for dipping. Thick, long-simmered to a dark-brownish-red and almost caramelized state, it was sweet and spicy, a good example of the genre, but its strong flavors overwhelmed the calamari and peppers, which stood well enough alone.

My wife chose a grilled steak salad ($7.95) as her entree. What the menu billed as "spring mix" proved to be mostly iceberg lettuce with a few sprigs of crisp, lightly bitter frisee. It was dressed in a rather bland vinaigrette and served surrounded by a composed arrangement of sliced cucumbers, a couple of rather pale tomato wedges, tired artichoke hearts, button mushrooms and pitted black olives, topped with a generous but seriously overcooked ration of sliced steak that was billed as tenderloin but looked and tasted more like long-cooked chuck.

My small Caesar ($3.25) was straightforward and rather simple, romaine topped with fresh, tasty croutons and very lightly dressed with something that only faintly whispered "Caesar."

A daily entree special, chicken-and-Dijon-stuffed "pocket pasta purses" ($15.95) was the hit of the meal, good enough to save an otherwise disappointing dinner from the pits. About 10 pasta squares were wrapped around a bright-yellow mix of finely chopped chicken meat and tangy Dijon mustard to make cute little plum-size "purses." They were tossed in a rich, creamy-cheesy Alfredo sauce with button mushrooms and barely wilted fresh spinach. Definitely a winner, and evidence that Abruzzi's kitchen can be both creative and competent.

Desserts aren't made on the premises, but they're tempting. A shared portion of New York cheesecake was fine: Dense, creamy and rich, with a pleasant cheesy tang to offset its sweetness, topped with just a dab of whipped cream.

Espresso, however, was disappointing. Black, thick and excessively bitter even for dark roast coffee, it showed no sign of the foamy "crema" that's the signature of a well-pulled espresso shot. It seems more like New Orleans chicory coffee than Italian espresso; and adding insult to injury, one of the cups showed an ugly crack down its side.

Dinner for two, including the wine, came to $77.30. Service was exceptional, from a bright and efficient young woman who managed to be friendly without trying to make friends and who was attentive without being intrusive. Her efforts helped improve a meal of variable quality and earned a full 20 percent tip, bringing the total to $93. $$$