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This archived review dates from 2007 or before. Use SEARCH above to find all recent reviews.
A landmark on Bardstown Road since 1962, when cars sported tail fins and young ladies poodle skirts, Lentini's red-sauced Italian-American fare might have seemed cutting-edge in JFK's time. Now it's familiar comfort food, and Lentini's continues to do it well. The news on this front is that new ownership - Cary Wells, who signs the menu as "Grosso Formaggio" ("the Big Cheese") and Chef Jeff Grubb ("Re di Cucina" or "King of the Kitchen") - has taken over management with a pledge to continue the Lentini family's commitment to provide "A little bit of Italy here in Louisville." Gone is the odd shotgun marriage of Italian and Vietnamese dishes offered briefly here under the management of Mr. Phat Le, the affable owner of Cafe Mimosa, who took over ownership from the Lentini family in 2001 and has now passed it on to Wells and Grubb. Once again Lentini's is all Italian, all of the time, and so the natural order of things is restored. The old stone-faced building still looks much the same as always, a rich and homey pasticcio of family Italian-American rococo decor. You enter through the bar, which looks as if it might have had a bit of renovation - a wall of mirrors along one side and tall tables and chairs make for a bit more spacious and airy environment than I remembered. The lazy-L-shaped front room facing Bardstown Road is smaller and a bit more intimate than the rather baroque dining room upstairs with its army of full-size Roman statues, but it offers similar old-fashioned family-Italian decor, with heavy maroon velvet drapes trimmed in gold, huge crystal chandeliers, and oversized antique oil paintings, dark and evocative in gilded frames. Formal-style wooden dining chairs are upholstered in soft red velvet; the tables are still draped in white tablecloths and set with white cloth napkins, flickering votive candles and fresh flowers in bud vases. However, the new owners have whisked away the former management's somewhat less elegant protective glass table coverings. Shorn of its Vietnamese options, the all-Italian menu is just as oversize and just and varied as ever, and the somewhat shopworn old menu covers have been replaced with shiny, spotless gold cardboard. Regular diners will find few surprises in the new menu, the server confirmed, saying, "We changed it a little bit, not too much. It should be the same recipes." Many of the dishes fall into the traditional Italian-American family cuisine that most people call "Southern Italian," those warm and filling pastas and dark-red tomato sauces from Naples and Sicily, herbal and sweet from many hours cooking over low heat, but you'll find a few standards from Northern Italy as well, ensuring that the full length of the Italian "boot" from Milano to Palermo is represented on the bill of fare ... and on the all-Italian wine list. Appetizers (Antipasti) start at $5.95 (for Sicilian bruschetta) to $7.95 (for our choice, oysters Lentini style, an Italianate twist on Oysters Rockefeller). Fried calamari or sausage and peppers are $6.50 each; scampi all'oglio or a traditional Italian antipasto tray are $6.95. Salads are $2.50 (for a small Caesar) to $8.95 for the Lentini's Special chef salad. Minestrone or chicken soup are $2.50 for a cup, $3.95 for a bowl. Main dishes, pastas and pizzas sprawl over three large menu pages in a virtual Italian smorgasbord; most entrees come with a cup of soup, small house salad, vegetable of the day and roasted potatoes or risotto included. Main courses start at $14.95 for two intriguing pork dishes - pork with fennel and mushrooms or pork chop with apples - and range upward to $23.95 for the filet mignon Filleto Bistecca di Manzo Lentini. Chicken dishes start at $15.95 for chicken Parmigiana; seafood and fish entrees are $17.95 (for salmone al limone) to $19.95 (for shrimp gambero prosciutto with cream sauce). Veal dishes are $19.50 for veal Marsala, piccata or Parmigiana, $19.95 for Ossobuco Milanese. A small rib eye steak is $16.95; the rather politically incorrectly named "Misura d'Uomo ("the man's size"), a 12-ounce rib steak is $18.50. About 15 pasta dishes range from $9.95 (for spaghetti with meatballs) to $16.95 for fettuccine alla Lentini with shrimp and mushrooms. A half-dozen of the pastas are listed as vegetarian, including eggplant Parmigiana ($13.25), a vegetable lasagne ($14.25) and pasta puttanesca, which is apparently made without the traditional anchovies and is accompanied with a smirking invitation to ask your server to translate "because it's a family restaurant." (This traditional dish of Naples is called "prostitute's pasta," allegedly because it's simple enough to be whipped up quickly between clients.) Speaking of politically incorrect, one of Lentini's pizzas is dubbed "pizza a la Mafia," a Sicilian-style pie topped with prosciutto, onions, roasted garlic and capers. There's also a classic pizza Margherita in the traditional Italian-flag colors of white mozzarella, green fresh basil and red tomato sauce, and a Neapolitan pie with sweet peppers and wild mushrooms. Traditional pizzas come in small, medium and large sizes and vary in price depending on toppings, starting at $7.95 for a small single-topping pie and ranging upwards to $20-plus for a large pizza with everything but the kitchen sink. Lentini's full bar offers a broad selection of cocktails and before-dinner drinks, including martinis, Manhattans, old-fashioneds and a vodka gimlet (all $4.95), and a classic Venetian Belline or a Pink Lady (I am not kidding about this) for $5.50. Artisan and imported beers are $4 to $5. The wine list is all-Italian or nearly so, and the new owners have roughly doubled the selection, adding quite a few interesting regional Italian wines with many affordable choices. House wines start at $3 a glass, and most of the less-expensive wines are also available by the glass at $4 to $6 for a glass, $15 to $25 for a bottle. At the high end, reds go up to $90 for 1998 Antinori Brunello or $70 for the Angelo Gaia 2001 Promis. The top white is Jermann "Dreams" Chardonnay from Alto Adige. Noteworthy bargains: A Piemontese Arneis ($6 a glass, $24 a bottle), the Falesco red blend "Vitiano" from Umbria ($6 and $25), and our choices for the evening, Freudo Arancio Grillo, a Sicilian white, and Masi 2000 Modello, a red blend from the Veneto, both just $5 a glass. As in the past, wines are served in fair-size, rather heavy but functional glasses, with by-the-glass wines poured just about brim-full, which may not be the best way to swirl and sniff, but you can't fault the generosity ... it appears to be a six-ounce pour or near it, meaning that you pay very little premium for by-the-glass service. We started with a shared appetizer, oysters Lentini-style ($7.95). The menu declared it "one of Chef Jeff's most popular dishes," and it certainly gained our vote. Five oversize, perfectly fresh oysters were served in their shells, set on a bed of fresh romaine and garnished with a couple of fresh lemon wedges. They're cooked in the shell under a hot, creamy blanket of melted Parmigiano garnished with chopped spinach, a homeopathic taste of pancetta (unsmoked Italian bacon) and a whiff of Sambuca, the herb-and-licorice-scented Roman liqueur. Soups, which come with most entrees, are served steaming hot in coffee-cup-size bowls. Minestrone was a homestyle Italian-American recipe, a thick, dark-reddish-brown soup loaded with tender penne pasta, cubes of potato, bits of carrot and celery, chunks of cooked tomato, green beans and red beans, with a savory back beat of tomatoes caramelized by long simmering on the back burner and perhaps a shake of dried spices. Chicken soup was thick, almost stew-like, full of tender shredded stewing hen, grated carrot, and short bits of broken spaghetti swimming in a salty but deeply flavored chicken broth. Cello-wrapped breadsticks were placed on the side, but we passed on them in favor of the much better Italian white bread served warm with plenty of fresh butter. House salads, also included with main dishes, are served on clear glass plates. A salad mix of lettuces and a few baby spinach leaves were tossed with shredded carrots, a small but bright-red and juicy tomato wedge, a thick, decoratively trimmed slice of cucumber and a handful of fresh, crisp herb croutons. Creamy blue-cheese dressing with plenty of crumbled gorgonzola cheese was served in a metal tub on the side. Our dinner choices were both fine. Chicken piccata ($16.50), consisted of two very fine flattened boneless chicken breasts, lightly dredged in flour and sauteed just to the point of tenderness, then napped with a light lemon-butter white-wine sauce (said to be made with the dry Italian white wine Orvieto from Umbria) and sprinkled with a few capers to add a tangy zest. A wedge of tender spaghetti squash made a flavorful vegetable accompaniment. The Ossobuco Milanese ($19.95) appeared to be a faithful rendition of the traditional Northern Italian veal-shank dish, the version with tomatoes. It's not a red-sauced item though, but a hearty dish, perfect for a brisk autumn evening; the tomatoes are simmered and caramelized into a scant, thick and garlicky dark-brown glaze on an oversize shank, deeply flavored if a bit close to the dividing line between veal and beef, long-cooked and literally falling-apart tender. A few tender carrot slices add sweetness and texture, and a sprinkle of fine-shredded gremolata (lemon zest and parsley) sprinkled on top provides a hint of texture and aromatics. The risotto Milanese that accompanied both dishes was passable but a bit disappointing. Rather dry and lumpy, it showed signs of having been made in quantity in advance and left to congeal in a serving tray before being scooped out to order. An earthy-musty hint of saffron showed up in the aroma but was barely enough to impart color. While this isn't a major gripe, it was perhaps the most serious shortcoming in an otherwise first-rate Italian-American meal. Too full for dessert (although tiramisu and cannoli were both mighty tempting), we finished with perfect "shots" of Zanetti Segafredo espresso ($2.50) from Italy, steaming and chocolatey-bitter with a proper foamy crema on top. We saved a few bucks by splitting an appetizer, skipping dessert and going with wine by the glass, holding the total dinner tab to $62.95 plus a $13.05 tip. (For the sake of comparison and analysis, our last review meal at the original, pre-Saigon Cafe, Lentini's in February 2001, came to $57.56 and a $10.44 tip for a meal that included a very modest bottle of wine and a shared dessert.) (November 2003) ACCESSIBILITY: The main floor dining room and bar are accessible to wheelchair users, but the larger dining room is up a flight of stairs.
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