After all the hype (especially about the pasta), the food was just mediocre, at best.

The restaurant itself was lovely, especially upstairs where it was quieter and calmer. It was noisy, trendy, and cafe-like downstairs, but the 2nd floor was simply yet warmly decorated. Dark leather booths contrasted well with the warm lighting and white brick walls.

The food: For an appetizer, we had the oxtail cake which was suprisingly tasty and had a complex flavor with the tomato based sauce, parmesan crisp, and shaved celery.

Then the disappointment – the pastas. The raviolo (as in 1, not ravioli – as in many) encased a barely poached egg in sage butter, which sounds delicious and should be. Except the pasta wasn’t cooked enough and had an underlying hardness and floury taste. Strike one. The “crispy” gnocchi was heavy, way too dense and chewy, and seemed like it had been floured to help it crisp, but had the effect of giving it a thick oily batter-like skin instead. There’s something wrong when I can make better gnocchi than an Italian restaurant that supposedly specializes in pasta. The wild boar ragu that was tumbled with the gnocchi was ok, a bit on the salty side. Strike two. The last pasta dish we ordered was the Bucatini all’Amatriciana – I was so excited to see one of my favorite pasty dishes on the menu. Sadly, I was disappointed. One of the reasons I love this dish is the rich buttery flavor in the sauce from the pancetta/guanciale, but this one was overly sweet instead. The other reason I love this dish is the uncommon pasta – which is similar to a hollow spaghetti noodle. It’s a little bit firmer than spaghetti, so I feel like it holds up better to the rich spicy sauce. Unfortunately, the pasta was holding up too much – it was undercooked and hard also.

Basically, while I enjoyed the space, I was quite disappointed with the food and now need to find another restaurant to satisfy my pasta craving.