From the minute when a Federal Hill butcher shop with deli seating was transformed into a white-linened trattoria, L’Epicureo set new standards for elegance and excellence. Last year, when the restaurant made another big move — onto the corner of Westminster and Mathewson, to join Hotel Providence — owners Tom and Rozann Buckner had the opportunity not only to increase seating, but also to expand their vision of what an upscale Italian-American place should look like.
Indeed, the restaurant’s décor creates a regal, almost baroque aura: mahogany-red walls with large gilt-framed portraits; crystal chandeliers; heavy brocade-like draperies; white orchids in cobalt blue vases that match the water glasses; and even a small lion-head fountain in one corner of the main dining room. The portraits are reproductions of familiar Italian masterpieces, including da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Botticelli’s Venus.
The menu keeps pace with the visual images. Executive chef Richard Allaire adds unusual vegetables and sauces to familiar items, such as roasted salsify in a crab salad, sunchoke sauce on a scallop appetizer, or long-stemmed artichokes in a fresh mozzarella salad. The results are, overall, magnificent. Our lobster and asparagus salad, for example, had white as well as green spears, with an accompanying mayo-like sabayon that incorporated lobster stock. It was quite delicious.
Other appetizers were a cheese plate, beet and goat cheese salad, Hudson Valley foie gras (currently very politically incorrect with animal-rights activists). The five- and seven-course tasting menus ($70 and $90) include the lobster salad, the sunchoked scallops, plus roasted ribeye with morels, and blue cod on the five-course option, plus grilled lamb tenderloin and Vermont quail on the seven-courser.
We had two of those seven items, since Bill was drawn to the seared blue cod ($24.95) and its accompaniments of shaved fennel and golden clams. There were also roasted fingerling potatoes, and the whole was in an unforgettably good smoked paprika bouillabaisse broth. The sauce was a terrific complement to the delicate cod, which is a tropical import, only swimming in New Zealand seas.
I chose the roasted organic chicken breast ($20.95), and it was very tasty. The whole breast, with a tiny wing bone for an accent, sat atop a comfort-food potato puree, filled out with braised mushrooms and escarole in a brandy and green peppercorn sauce. The strong taste of the sauce was a good foil to the mild chicken, but it seemed much too salty — indicating “the cook’s in love,” according to a German aphorism.
But this is an Italian kitchen, and other featured main dishes are osso bucco with a parsley-garlic gremolata, risotto with oyster mushrooms and cipollini onions, salmon with endive marmalade, pork tenderloin with chive gnocchi, veal Bolognese, and lobster tail with vegetable ravioli. Those same offerings are available in the Brio Lounge, along with a few smaller-appetite items, such as a panini, an individual pizza, and a Caesar salad.
L’Epicureo is justly proud of its wine list, drawing from fine Continental vineyards as well as from California and far-flung Australia and New Zealand. Closer to home are New York and Rhode Island labels, including unusual ports, moscatos, and other dessert wines.
