Testaccio at the Gardens: A taste of Rome in Nassau
At Testaccio at the Gardens in Garden City Park, spaghetti carbonara is made the proper way, without cream. (May 17, 2012) Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus
Very promising dinner last night at Testaccio at the Gardens, a new Italian restaurant in Garden City Park.
Looking over the menu, I felt a mixture of elation and dread. Elation because here was a document deeply rooted in regional Italian (and not Italian-American) tradition. The region is Rome (Testaccio is a famously gritty neighborhood in the Eternal City), and the menu featured such Roman classics as fried baby artichokes (carciofi alla Giudea), braised tripe, saltimbocca and the three great Roman pasta preparations: carbonara, all’Amatriciana and cacio e pepe.
Dread because, with a few exceptions, Long Island restaurants don’t have a great track record with authentic regional Italian cooking. (Most of the ones that start out authentic eventually succumb to the pressure of a dining public that refuses to patronize restaurants that don’t serve baked clams and chicken Parm, and drizzle balsamic reduction on everything else.)
Elation, I’m happy to report, won out. Fried baby artichokes, seafood salad, an appetizer of eggplant Parmesan done the Southern-Italian way — a casserole of thinly sliced eggplant layered with cheese and topped with a simple marinara sauce — were excellent.
The big test came with my spaghetti carbonara and, thank goodness, it was made with a tight, creamless sauce of eggs and guanciale (cured pork jowel, of which it could have used more). Strozzapreti (“strangle-the-priest” pasta) was oversauced with a good pesto. We also enjoyed little lamb rib chops “scottadito” with a side of polenta. The tripe, in a luscious sauce, needed a couple more hours of cooking to achieve a melting tenderness.
Testaccio’s kitchen seemed very assured for a three-week-old restaurant; the rest of the operation could use some fine-tuning. Our friendly and conscientious server seemed to have little familiarity with the niceties of fine dining, nor with the foods and wine of Italy (or at least the Italian names of the foods and wines of Italy). Kudos to the elegant stemware, but what was with the plastic, deli-style, serving spoons that came with the seafood salad?
Testaccio at the Gardens is a collaboration between Carlo and Paul Bordone, owners of the well-regarded Testaccio Ristorante in Long Island City (the menus, at least for now, are identical) and Michael Izzo, a chef who has done stints at Iavarone Bros. in Woodbury and A&S Pork Store in Huntington. Izzo was also a partner at Vintage, the Italian-American restaurant that occupied this building before it was transformed into Testaccio at the Gardens. (The name is an homage to the Garden Inn, located at this address for years before it became, in turn, McGillicuddy's, Patrick's East Side Grill and, until about a year ago, Vintage.)
Testaccio at the Gardens is in the neat fieldstone building at 2232 Jericho Tpke. (south side of Jericho, two blocks west of Nassau Boulevard), Garden City Park, 516-502-6900.
At Testaccio at the Gardens: carbonara done right.
