Anteprima
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I was a little surprised to hear that the owner of this so-called “regionally inspired,” “rustic,” tin-ceilinged Italian spot was also a partner in the generic barstaurant Charlie’s Ale House next door. But Marty Fosse also ran the front of the house at Spiaggia at one time, and while Anteprima is a far cry from that rarefied temple of la cucina italiana, his new place shows promise as a neighborhood standby. A dozen or so antipasti lead the menu, a few of them very inexpensive and a few rather special, including soft veal meatballs in a sweet saffron-tomato sauce and a salumi plate that features a fragrant finocchiona salumi cured by Mario Batali’s papa in Seattle. While the aspirations of this place seemed to indicate the kitchen might know how to handle pasta, my table’s orders of strozzapreti (“priest stranglers”) with pancetta and cherry tomatoes, orecchiette with lamb sausage and dandelion greens, and tagliatelle with duck ragu, arrived merely warm and a little gummy. But navigating restaurant pasta options is always treacherous, and because an order of spaghetti with fava beans placed later in the night was damn near perfect, I’m willing to bet the kitchen is capable of getting it right–perhaps just not when the house is slammed at eight o’clock on a Friday night. Main dishes include a salty brick-grilled Cornish hen with rapini–there are bitter greens all over the menu, in fact–baby lamb chops, and wood-grilled whole fish specials. There’s a long, all-Italian wine list with plenty of quartino options and a decent selection of grappa and other digestives. –Mike Sula
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Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Owner Marty Fosse at Anteprima photo by Eric Futran.
