Brad S.
Yelp
"Welcome to the best restaurant in the world."
- plaque near the entrance to Savute's
Some cuisines have gone through transformations over the past several decades and the current preparation of these dishes are sometimes fairly radically different than where they started. At the same time, there's something nice and comforting about those old ways of doing things, too, perhaps giving hope that there exists a world where both could coexist and please people who are looking for the old or new methods of preparation.
Italian is not one of those cuisines.
The Italian restaurants of old were about one thing: RED SAUCE, and they poured that SAUCE on everything in sight, drowning whatever protein or pasta that came along with it. In the past fifteen years or so, someone finally took a trip to Italy and discovered that while SAUCE is an important part of many dishes, the true tenant of Italian cooking is in the marriage of simple ingredients, each expertly prepared to showcase the harmony that can be created.
The meal began with a boring tossed salad served with a couple of slices of pepperoni and a pepperoncini. It was served with a basket of cold rye bread.
I ordered Savute's Supreme Piatto, which turned out to be a trio of spaghetti and meatball, lasagna, and beef (or chicken, but I ordered beef) cacciatore .
It should be noted that spaghetti and red sauce is an American invention - in Italy, the thin and longer noodles are typically reserved for lighter fare like oils, cheese, and herbs, where the heavy stew-based red sauces are paired with tubular noodles, which are much better at holding sauce. With that being said, I was served a portion of overcooked spaghetti that was topped with a large helping of SAUCE. At no point were the two introduced before hitting my plate, so trying to force the two to come together was an exercise in futility. I found the meatball to be decent, though a bit bland, consisting of nothing but ground beef and some diced onion. It tasted a bit like a Swedish meatball, actually.
The lasagna was a rearrangement of the spaghetti and meatballs, layering the traditional ground beef, SAUCE, and ricotta. At no time did the dish work cohesively as a unit, instead choosing to slip and slide at the mere sight of my fork.
The beef cacciatore was interesting if only because it wasn't covered in SAUCE, but instead a very lightly cooked collection of peppers, tomatoes, celery, and onions, all cut entirely too large, and all cooked in some sort of wine-like liquid that made them all too sweet. Everything still had a hearty crunch to it, which I found very unpleasant.
When my plate was served to me it had a little Italian flag sticking out of the meatball on top of my spaghetti, serving as a reminder that the meal I was about to eat was intended to be Italian. At no time did I see any attempt to use herbs, not even Parmesan, though I guess if I wanted some spice I could have grabbed the container of garlic salt that are handily located on every table.
There are plenty of restaurants that have been around for years, and maintain a very loyal following (families with children and the elderly) that doesn't like things challenged beyond their narrow viewpoint of what their definition of food entails, and in many cases, I can give a restaurant a pass if they still make good food (Cafe Bel Ami and Scotch and Sirloin come to mind). In the case of Savute's, however, their way of doing Italian is something that should have been left in the 1940s where it originated. Just all-around disappointing.
