Good choices: Baby octopus with roasted peppers; fried cala mari; tuna Nicoise salad; fettuccini with grilled vegetables; spaghetti alla chittara; rotisserie chicken with white beans and pesto; rabbit in Provencal sauce, homemade gnocchi; roasted monkfish with vegetable risotto; biscotti.
RISTORANTE EUNO
119 Salem St., Boston
(617) 573-9406
Restaurant reviewed 10/06/97 by Alison Arnett
The North End has long been thought of as the Italian stronghold of Boston. The tight little square mile of narrow streets and closely packed buildings ceased to be the exclusive enclave of Italian immigration some time ago, but the numerous restaurants there continue to bear the banner. Going to the North End for dinner is a tradition beloved in Boston, and a meal there means Italian.
But in a world constantly changing, even the North End follows suit.
Ristorante Euno, on a stretch of Salem Street that has had a sudden burst in restaurant openings, demonstrates this new diversity nicely. An ad in a local paper reads ``Where Southern France meets Southern Italy,'' and adds that Euno serves Sicilian Mediterranean cuisine. The owners import their own olive oil and run Biscotti's Pasticceria Italiana, a biscotti and espresso cafe down the street, as well as a shop selling beautiful Sicilian pottery. Their chef, David Rossetto, however, is originally from France and he describes his food as Mediterranean.
This is a place that in many ways typifies the new North End. In mild weather, the front windows are open and the whole room seems to face toward the street. The host greets those coming in, and walks in and out, keeping note of the crowds lining up at the more cheaply priced restaurant across the street. Strollers look in; laughter and snatches of conversation drift in. The life of the street, the community, is part of the eating experience. One could really be in a small town along the Mediterranean.
The first dining experience at Euno reinforced the initial impression of being transported to Europe. The room, decorated with distressed plaster in a sky blue and some Sicilian ceramics, is simple with the open kitchen fronted by a hanging row of copper pots. The greeting was gracious; the olive oil for dipping bread excellent. An octopus salad arrived, tiny whole bodies that were firm and clean to the taste with only enough vinaigrette for flavor. Roasted red peppers and pristine greens completed the dish, a real pleasure to eat. Fried calamari, crisp and greaseless, were served with two sauces, one a spicy red pepper and the other a cool green basil and mint mixture. Even the children in the party found the crunchy calamari delicious.
We loved the pastas, too. Spaghetti alla chittara was beautifully made with a fresh-tasting tomato sauce and very salty, hard ricotta shaved on top. It was the kind of sharp/salty/mellow blending that makes good pasta so satisfying. Grilled vegetables over fettuccini with a very light pesto was a different sensation, the vegetables firm and slightly smoky, the pesto adding just enough herbal and garlic kick.
Chicken roasted rotisserie style, with crackling skin and a moist interior, was wonderful too, with white beans and grilled red onions filling out the plate. Rabbit was even better, in a piquant sauce of red peppers, onions, and garlic. It's a meat that needs care to retain its delicacy and yet bring out the slight gaminess that even domesticated rabbit has. Rossetto does that with flair. With it were feathery gnocchi, toasted at the edges to a gentle bit of crispness, a worthy companion to the meat.
Euno seemed a great find. And yet, looking over my notes later, I realized I had remarked upon the forgetful service, the wait staff's inability to remember requests or to bring the check in a reasonable time.
A later visit provided a taste of Southern France in an exemplary salad Nicoise. Glistening tuna carpaccio was twirled in a mound above an abundance of anchovies, greens, sliced radishes, and pencil-thin green beans. Poached quail eggs were an inspired touch, their size and lively flavor perfect for the salad as were thin toasts spread with olive tapenade. It was a wonderful tribute to the modern Mediterranean sensibilities, the fresh sea tastes of the tuna matched by the earthiness of the crisp vegetables and the eggs. Beautiful to look at, beautiful to eat. Rossetto, in a phone interview, explained that he marries his French techniques, honed in his native Dijon and in Nice as well as a stint at the Julien in the Hotel Meridien here, with Italian ingredients and influences.
Unfortunately, inconsistency, the bane of restaurants and reviewers, reared its ugly head by the next visit. Why, after the calamari, the octopus, and the salad had been so special, was a grilled portobello salad with asparagus and peas so uninteresting, its parts adding up to an incoherent whole? What was the inspiration for the timbale of goat cheese, olives, and potatoes, not unpleasant to taste, but not flavorful enough to transcend the oddity of the combination? Why did the broccoli rapini feel so limp, the strands having absorbed too much oil.
Filets of trout topped with sun-dried tomatoes were fine, but the bow tie pasta tossed with snow peas underneath definitely had been parboiled and was distastefully limp and gummy. A pasta dish with sauteed chicken livers, sage, cream sauce, and more limp rapini was essentially tasteless, as though no plan or recipe had been envisioned, just unseasoned elements stuck together.
Only roasted monkfish in a dark veal jus sauce held the interest, its robust flavors making a strong statement. The vegetable risotto was a little gummy, but still we all tasted the dish with satisfaction, as much owing to our disappointment with the other dishes as to the monkfish's merits.
Unfortunately, the consistent element of Euno was the service, still pleasant but distracted. The waiter, who seemed very harried although the restaurant wasn't overly busy, mixed up an order, disappeared for long periods only to arrive breathless when flagged down, and generally forgot requests and missed cues.
Dessert at Euno depends on the selection from Biscotti's down the street, the chef explained, not a bad thing considering the excellence of the shop's cookies and pastry. However, two orders, one for tiramisu and one for a selection of biscotti, garnered only the tiramisu.
It was very good, a fine example of the genre. But when one is hungering for the crunch of a biscotti, the denial lingers in the mind. Unfortunate for a last impression.
Tips & hits
