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Type: Bistro
Prices: Antipasto, salads, pizzas $5.50-$13.50; pasta $11.95-$21; market price lobster fra diavolo, entrees $15.95-$29; desserts $5.95-$7.95.
Sound level: Very noisy in main dining area when busy.
Good choices: Rosemary grilled shrimp; dry-aged tenderloin carpaccio; ravioli with wilted greens; lobster fra diavolo with clams; grilled yellowfin tuna with caponata; almond florentine with berries; geometric chocolate torte.
Hours: Lunch, Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Dinner, Mon.-Thurs. 5- 11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5 p.m.-midnight; Sun. 4-9 p.m.
Reservations accepted. Smoking in bar only.
Credit cards: American Express, Visa, Mastercard.
Access: Fully accessible.
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RAPHAEL BAR-RISTO
1 Cookson Place, Providence
(401) 421-4646
Restaurant reviewed 10/29/98 by Alison Arnett
After driving an hour and a half through pelting rain, heavy traffic, and road construction lane changes, then wandering around downtown Providence with lightning and thunder crashing around me, I find Raphael's Bar-Risto. Stumbling in, I gratefully hand my bedraggled coat and umbrella to the welcoming woman at the door, who smiles solicitously, betraying no annoyance at my late arrival for a reservation.
Then I turn to the dining room to find my party and stop short for a second. I know I shouldn't be so surprised - after all, I've written before that Providence is a dining-out city. But still, it's a shock on a rain-drenched, chilly Wednesday to find that the place is rocking.
Carved into what was once a grand old train station, Raphael's, owned by Raphael and Elisa Conte, is all blond wood, marble floors, and glistening lights. The sound bounces around the arched alcoves and mirrored surfaces; laughter cascades up and down the room; it's noisy but a bit intoxicating, too. And as we study the menu and gaze at long tables of chatting businesspeople and raucous groups celebrating birthdays, we notice that the food passing by matches the ambience - abundance on the plates, fanciful presentation, lots of style.
The Contes have owned several restaurants in the Providence area; this, designed by Elisa Conte, is the most ambitious. (Her uncle, well-known illustrator Anthony Russo, contributed a 24-foot mural that graces one wall.) The sense of party is buoyed by appetizers. A crispy fried artichoke with wisps of pancetta stands straight up with a frond of chives waving atop it and a stream of pale green pea puree around it. I like the look more than the taste because the breading is too heavy. But I quickly go on to marvel at a lobster Napoleon, a delicate construction of flaky pastry, big chunks of lobster, a layer of smoked tomatoes and mascarpone, and avocado. Lots of elements here, but the tastes join together for a lovely whole.
Although another appetizer of scallops, spinach, and two sauces of saffron and anise-tomato is pretty, too, one begins to discern the strengths of Raphael Conte and his chef de cuisine, Richard DesRoches. The scallops, little nuggets of perfectly crisped moistness, are delicious; the rest of the plate seems a little extraneous. But some of the dishes blend seamlessly. Three shrimp on a skewer bedecked with rosemary are perfect, too, smoky yet not at all dry, and all the accompaniments - cannellini beans, roasted tomato relish, and a simple triangle of bruschetta - make up an appealing dish. The very best, though, is the simplest: dry-aged tenderloin carpaccio splayed like rose petals across the plate with a topknot of grano Parmesan, its intensity matching that of the beef.
The seafood entrees are especially strong. Lobster fra diavolo sings flavor, with exceptionally good lobster so gently handled that all its sweetness explodes in one's mouth. Littleneck clams taste of the sea and the spicy red diavolo sauce accentuates the shellfish rather than masking it. The bottom of the shallow bowl is filled with angel-hair pasta, but that's merely a backdrop.
Yellowfin tuna, a hefty portion of it, is grilled beautifully on the outside but remains quite rare within, just as ordered. Sicilian caponata of eggplant, onions and a generous portion of golden raisins make a nice contrast. And the grilled romaine is so good - smoky and spiked with just a little hot pepper flakes and garlic - that everyone at the table begs to taste it again and again until it disappears.
Large, thin ravioli filled with greens bear what must have been an entire bag of mixed greens, all beautifully wilted yet still full of life. It's pretty and unusual and really quite good - not your average meatless pasta. However, overdoing the whimsy and the elaboration intrudes on the taste of some dishes. Squid ink tagliatelle (therefore called "Nero-style") boasts great divers scallops and calamari, but the lobster-tomato-Madeira sauce along with red caviar seems out of place, and the result is a muddy taste. Saffron risotto with an abundance of seafood from bass to clams and shrimp is much too rich, creamy, and thick. The mixture sticks together and more than a few bites is too many.
Dolling up food reaches a ridiculous level in the case of the mustard-herb roasted pork loin. This is good pork loin, roasted to just the right degree of doneness, moist and full-flavored. But why set the loins up vertically, coated in herbs and crumbs, like torpedoes with thick sticks of roasted potato propped against them? So silly. And the satisfyingly bitter bite of sauteed broccoli rabe is undercut by a slightly-too-sweet ruby port-maple sauce.
The architectural approach works much better in desserts, I think, as is demonstrated by pastry chef Melanie Kamen's geometric chocolate torte. The deep chocolate cake comes in rectangles and squares, the hazelnut praline in a flat circle, and there's a caramel antenna that looks modeled on the movie "Antz." It's clever, attractive, and the pieces work well together. Even the raspberry coulis tastes great. Desserts here are enormous, much bigger than I've seen lately in Boston. The lemon ricotta cheesecake is pleasant, but who could eat such a big portion? It ends up seeming heavy just because of the size. I'm not fond of the new wave of desserts in which molten chocolate gushes from cakes or in this case a round ball of fondant, but I like the vanilla gelato with it, and enjoyed the praline gelato served on its own. But the best dessert is a very large fluted shell of almond Florentine, its sweet crunch setting off the raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries spilling from it - an instance where form melds into delicious function.
Raphael's wine list has enough variety to fit the food, especially in Italian vintages, and there's also a long, and very pricey, private list. The wait staff is obviously well-trained, using very clear enunciations (our waiter one evening sounded positively Shakespearean), and handled their tasks efficiently and cheerfully.
The slightly theatrical service adds to the sense of Raphael's - high style and high energy in food and ambience, well worth traveling through a downpour.
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