Basilico Ristorante e Enoteca
500 NW 21st Street
Portland, Oregon
503-223-2772
reviewed September 2004
A double handful of antipasti fritti reflects the Roman passion for things lightly battered and fried in olive oil. Fiori di zucca contrasts the hot, crackling crust against delicately ephemeral squash blossoms, and the fresh anchovies, something every restaurant in town should serve, were especially tasty. So far so good. I liked the other antipasti, too, especially fave e piselli, fresh fava beans and pecorino cheese. This combo is a classic Roman snack, the process of shucking and peeling the favas providing an activity to justify the numerous glasses of Frascati or Orvieto. Here it's combined into a salad and dressed with extra virgin olive oil, a nice variation that's much easier to eat, even if doesn’t allow for extra wine drinking.
Other openers included sauteed calamari, an assortment of salumi, that artichoke salad, and a mussels and clams combination. Where, I wondered, were the roasted peppers, eggplant, mushrooms in olive oil, little fried fish soaking in vinegar, and the other antipasti I'd eaten in Trastevere and Testaccio? Where were the cipolline in agrodolce, the most Roman svogliatura of all, the sweet and sour snack that combines onions, olive oil, and vinegar, the favorite foods of the legionnaires?
Okay, Portland isn't Rome. And anyway, I've always felt that any restaurant serving exactly the same food offered in Italy would probably close within a few weeks. We're notoriously picky eaters without the long tradition that brings grown men to blows over whether a real amatriciana sauce can be made with pancetta, an unsmoked bacon, instead of the cured pork jowl called guanciale. Fisticuffs won't be necessary at Basilico, where guanciale provides the rich porky quality to a very nice version of the spicy tomato sauce, correctly served over the thick hollow pasta called bucatini. It's also featured in tagliolini all Gricia, a sort of amatriciana without the tomatoes. Mine would've been better if the grated pecorino on top hadn't been left under the heat lamp to harden into a chewy cap, but it was full of guanciale.
Spaghetti alle sarde, with fresh sardines, raisins, and pine nuts is the kind of dish I'd love to see more of. Elemental and forward, it represents the gusto Romans display at the table. But Basilico's version was a bit flat and under seasoned. You can't offer this kind of food and be shy about fat and salt, both needed to kick this up to the level it deserves. The best primi on the list was zuppa di pasta alla Trasteverina, tiny clams and sweet peas in a deeply flavored broth with pasta squares.
The secondi represent a nice selection of standards, from pork roast flavored with rosemary and fennel to pollo alla diavola, a spatchcocked chicken marinated in olive oil and lemon juice spiked with garlic and peperoncini. Saltimbocca (it means “jump in your mouth”) is thin scallops of veal topped with proscuitto and sage and sauteed just enough to brown. Basilico’s version lived up to its name. A fish special one night featured mackerel, a delicious fish but one that restaurants often avoid because it must be served spankingly fresh. Simply grilled and served with baby eggplant and a simple tomato sauce, it demonstrated that the kitchen can deliver.
While the food is a little uneven, the renovated space is incredibly pleasant. Anybody who dined here either recently at Zinc or back in the Zefiro days will notice the silence first. The square room lined with hard, acoustically reflective surfaces generated a roar that made dinner conversation nearly impossible.
The dining room's the same familiar box, but pale orange acoustic panels cover most of two walls, rising above comfortable banquettes that perform double duty by further dampening the echo. Muted golds and greens help soften the minimally appointed room, and the overall effect is rather relaxing. Basilico isn’t quite library-quiet, but even with a relatively full house, you can actually converse with a tablemate, and occasionally you can even hear the soft clink of dinnerware or the random sentence from a conversation several tables over.
Some of Basilico's minor faults, like occasionally inattentive service, can be chalked up to its tender age. Over time the kitchen and dining room should fall into synch. The food needs a little more work, though. I'd like to see even more emulation of real trattoria fare and less concern for Americans' eating sensibilities. The kitchen, led by Paul Ornstein, has the chops. The very first thing you’ll eat at Basilico proves it.
Carta di musica is a simple Sardinian flatbread that migrated the few kilometers to the mainland long ago. Basilico's version of 'musical paper' is perfect. Crispy, exactly enough salt, and a light sheen of olive oil that barely leaves a trace on your fingers. The only problem is how to stop eating from the seemingly bottomless pile delivered to every table so you'll have room for something else.