Hole in the Wall worth falling into
First of all, you have to find it. Buca is tucked away in an alley to the west of 604 King St. No sign yet adorns the entry gates so, feeling akin to Bill Sykes and Oliver Twist on a recce, we steal along the grey brick walls until we come upon lit windows – and look down into a soaring room, an old boiler room gutted to reveal stripped yellow brick walls lit with modern chandeliers which invest the Italian minimalist décor (by Guido Costantino) with a soft mellow glow. Dramatic and inviting.
Buca (hole in the wall) is the new and inspired restaurant from Peter Tsebelis and Gus Giazitzidis, owners of Brassai and Jacobs Steak House. Buca is a big bold adventurous journey through rustic Italian cooking. The chef Rob Gentile, formerly at Bymark and North 44, has mined the humble food of the provinces and come up with a menu rich in surprise and delight. Nodini $5, warm garlicky breadknots sprinkled with sea salt. Crisp pigs ears $5 rival pork bellies in juiciness. Pan fried fresh-water eel, Venetian style, with vinegared onions, pine nuts…$24. I’d forgotten how good eel can be: it has the meatiness of monk fish.
Buca wants to please everybody, shared plates are suggested but the dog in a manger can go it alone.
We want to try as many of the unfamiliar dishes as we can – so we order with greedy eyes. A word here about the service. On both my visits, the waiters Laura and then Christian are superb knowledgeable guides, listening to our requests, suggesting the order of dishes – and then unrolling the meal seamlessly. Wine’s great with the food too. I’ve never tasted Sardegnan wine before, a crisp white Vermentino Santandi 07 $7 or the mellow Morellino $44 a bottle from Tuscany.
Two slices of slipperily choice Gelantina Calabrese are set down before us. Head cheese by any other name, pieces of pork mixed with aspic made by boiling a pig’s head. Haven’t had it since I was a kid in rural England where it is called brawn – a reminder that thrifty food has no borders, it is the tilth of pan-european cuisine. Comes with a pickled onion and a mustardy dressing. Titillating beginning. Gnoccho fritto is good too, little dry balloon dumplings with cured pork.
The duck egg tagliatelle with duck ragu $18 is perfectly cooked although, as is often the case, the fugitive duck doesn’t make much impact, but the lemony marjoram does, and does so again in the succulent agnelotti, stuffed with veal, which sit in an agreeable puddle of veal reduction.
We skip the gilled hangar steak on the grounds that we can eat that easily elsewhere. But for those balking at pig’s ears, this may be good to know. Instead we eat fish which often defines a kitchen’s skill. Sometimes there is simply too much fish – the key is to leave the diner feeling they’ve had too little… Gentile rises to the challenge. Biteable chunks of eel are seasoned to emphasize its engaging texture. Sea bream is exquisitely presented, two little white wings criss-crossed with grill marks, scented with preserved lemon and cracked green olives and olive oil.
Grilled quail comes piled up for eating with our fingers, and accompanied by soursweet sweet-sour cippollino onions, the ones that sit down on the plate properly. I pick up a leg and taste tender pinkish meat which has been rubbed with fennel and lemon. I think I’ll have to have a doggy bag and then they’re all gone.
I glance over at my neighbours who are scizzoring up a slim crust pizza topped with zucchini flowers. There are almost too many choices here. Sensing a voluptuary crise, we skip the cheese sampling ,$15 for three, which includes a semihard sheep’s cheese from Florence and the parmesan-tasting Piave.
Still, we can’t ignore Yasmin Amarshi-Johaadien’s dolce. It’s difficult to declare a winner between butternut squash gelato or the almond tart filled with Ontario buffalo ricotta, sliced poached pear and orange olive oil.
Oh one last thing: the lighting’s so soft that at night we have trouble reading the menu’s tiny print and someone else had the house flashlight! A teething problem for Buca, which has been open only a week, and is otherwise a rare restaurant up and running from the word go.
***1/2 Buca 604 King W. at Portland St. 416-865 1600 No wheelchair access. Noise: considerable. Dinner for two: food plus tax:$122
THe food was boring, nothing to write home about. Maybe his kitchen help this time around is not as good as his previous venues he worked in or someone made him look better than he really was at North 44. The desserts at Buca were fantastic and on par with North 44 if not better but the actual entre menu left somethin more to be desired.