Good choices: Warm corn pudding with sweet pea sauce; stuffed tomato with farmer's cheese, ratatouille and balsamic drizzle; Ipswich frying clams with warm potatoes; bluefish with corn fritters; grilled striped bass, leeks braised in red wine; peddlar's steak; cinammon ice cream; chocolate mousse.
Fava looks a bit like a troll's cave from the outside - a low-lying structure made of irregular stones, with a funny-looking tall chimney. It's hard by the railroad tracks, and it shares the building with a coffee place called Java, and although there's a modest sign, it really doesn't look like a restaurant.
As soon as one walks in the door, though, the troll imagery drops away. Fire blazes as meat turns on a spit in the open kitchen. The aromas are enticing; the view into a cozy dining room shows that the place is busy, even on a weeknight; there's a sense that Fava, at only 4 months old, is the happening spot in Needham.
Paul Booras, the chef-owner, is following one of the trends in the '90s restaurant scene: Rather than open his first restaurant in the white-hot competition of the city, he's chosen a suburban spot with upscale demographics, easy parking and a clientele eager for fine dining close to home.
His place is au courant enough to be named for the Italian bean, which Booras fashions into a puree to spread on bread, and sprinkles its fresh form into many dishes. But his cuisine revolves around American classics and the ambience is low-key and family friendly. Booras - who was a sous chef at Olives, chef at several Boston restaurants, and a veteran of a season on Nantucket - brings exuberance and strong style to his cuisine. His love for seafood spills into five of eight entrees on the summer menu.
The first taste of grilled striped bass filet, cooked over maple and oak, makes perfectly clear the chef's passion. It was stunning, the smoky fish grabbing attention while still moist, the carrot puree underneath a clean, straight backdrop smooth against julienned slivers of green beans, asparagus, and snow peas. Grilled leeks, just barely tender, topped the fish.
The assertive flavor of pan-roasted bluefish was mellowed by the crunch of corn fritters studded with crabmeat, and the result was summer on the tongue. Even so, this and other fish entrees - a gentle sesame-crusted red snapper with smoky eggplant puree and a herb-crusted salmon with mashed sweet peas from an earlier menu - paled compared to the grilled versions of fish. In Booras's hands, the stronger the flavors the better. Ipswich frying clams, on the spring menu, showed his strengths, crisp and greaseless, each clam nestled inside the protective coating of flour, cornmeal, and semolina, tasting barely brushed by the cooking process.
The patchwork of influences on American cuisine gives impetus to the food at Fava. Sometimes there were American components orchestrated in modern ways. A slice of corn pudding, rather like a firm cornbread studded with lots of fresh corn, sat atop a sweet pea sauce, in homage, Booras says, to Todd English of Olives.
Despite initial confusion at figuring out this version of terrine-like corn pudding, which traditionally is of a creamier consistency, the composition worked, bright in colors and pleasing in tastes.
Tomato halves stuffed with farmer's cheese and surrounded by an eggplant and zucchini ratatouille was delicious, particularly because of a balsamic vinegar dressing that boosted the vegetables.
At other points, the Americana was more straightforward. Roast chicken slathered with a dark, homey barbecue sauce reminded one of backyard dining, although it also would have been good grilled. A wood-grilled steak got a lovely baptism from flames, highlighted by Vidalia onion jam.
The thought was there in a classic American dish of molasses cured pork chop with applesauce, but the sweetness of the thin sauce overwhelmed everything else on the plate, drowning out any tartness in the apple or carrots.
This pointed out the flip side to the exuberance. At times the flavor combinations were thrown askew by too much of one taste - berries in a coulis that was sugary sweet, salads that were good but too plentiful, presentations that were just plain messy.
And the sides of handcut fries, corn pudding, toasted barley, or homemade potato salad were simply over the top when added to what was already on the plate. It was difficult for the diner to match the tastes to what was being ordered, and it seemed in several cases difficult for the kitchen to control the quality. One evening, the corn pudding matched the consistency of library paste and had a similar taste, and the herbed basmati rice was too oily to eat. However, on a subsequent evening potato salad was delicious and toasted barley a nice, nutty counterpoint.
The abundance of food, added to the noise in the low-ceilinged room with wood tables and brick walls, gave each evening we were there a rather frenetic feeling. The staff, much more organized by the second visit to Fava, handles the room well, though.
Booras makes his own desserts. I loved the cinnamon ice cream, my idea of a perfect summer treat, tasting definitely homemade, with a beguiling, irregularly shaped butter ``animal cracker'' cookie. Chocolate mousse, swirled with chocolate sauce, was heady but perfect for fanatics, and Key lime pie on an earlier visit had the right amount of citrus kick.
Fava has some smoothing out to do, and some reining in, but the lively style of food and ambience bode well for this suburban sophisticate.
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