Lupa Will Have You Howling at the Moon

Greetings to all! After a long and relaxing holiday rest, I am back on line and ready to make 2008 the year of the Ubereater!

My eatings over the course of my time off have been quite remarkable, from an amazing dinner with Meghan at famed Lupa, to an all-world Christmas Eve dinner with cousins in West Milford; both meals quite effectively reacquainted me with food's ability to improve our lives. In fact, of the dozen or so times I've eaten at Mario Batali's Lupa, this past outing was probably the most exquisite yet. At the same time, the multi-course Christmas Eve extravaganza put on by my Uncle Jim and Aunt Linda could not have more accurately captured the essence of a homemade meal created with love and steeped in tradition. No more than 48 hours apart, it has occurred to me that the simple perfection of Lupa, and the perfect simplicity of Christmas Eve dinner, together embody the very reason why eating is my way of life. While Lupa reminds us that amazing food begets unwavering passion, my Aunt Linda's stuffed peppers would have you believe it is very much the other way around. Either way, there is a lesson to be learned as much as there is food to be eaten.

Of all the restaurants I've visited in this great big city, Lupa is probably the one with which I am most familiar. Haven eaten here more than a dozen times, Mario Batali's titan on Thompson Street remains one of my favorite dining experiences of all time. It is an eatery that is authentic, humble, and unique all while consistently offering some of the most hearty and toothsome Italian food you'll ever put in your mouth. It is for this reason that Meghan and I decided to celebrate Christmas here.

Almost at the corner of Houston and Thompson St, Lupa's muted orange awning and subtle storefront make it the proverbial wallflower of the sometimes overly gregarious Greenwich Village dining scene. Like an insecure, slightly overweight girl at her first school dance, Lupa's shy exterior acts as an outer shell to a dynamic and extraordinary interior dedicated not to superficial presentation, but genuinely wonderful food. Behind the draped entrance, the dining room is long and narrow, separated into a front and back by restrooms and a server station in the middle. The 15 or so wood-carved table and chairs that share a space with a full bar in the front, create a more casual feel than the dimly-lit white tablecloth setting in the back.

Specifically concentrating on rustic Roman fare that is uncomplicated and straightforward, Lupa's menu is as simple as it is true to itself. Upon sitting down, we were greeted with fresh house-made rosemary focaccia bread that was divinely salty and greedily absorbed the rich olive oil by its side.

The menu is a living, breathing document offering a seasonally revolving collection of ever intriguing starters. These goodies range from various hard-to-find verdure (vegetables), homemade salumi (cold cuts), fresh fish, and unconventional salads, in addition to an ample list of primi (pasta) and secondi (meat) piatti. Well aware of this, we started with two vegetable preparations, Truffled Scorzonera (below left), and the Treviso with Vin Cotto (below right). The first featured salsify, a lesser-known semi-sweet root plant, sliced into 3 inch pieces and marinated in truffle oil. The white, somewhat starchy al dente flesh of the vegetable gladly absorbed the unmistakable essence of the truffle oil. Similarly, the Treviso, or radicchio from Treviso, was quickly grilled after being brushed with a sweet wine reduction rendering its crunchy bitterness vulnerable to a tart glaze that can only be described as a more masculine sibling to aged balsamic vinegar.

Satiated by salsify satisfaction and puckered by the sweet wine reduction, we tackled a Squash, Celery Root, and Guanciale salad (pictured right) that represented this restaurant's uncanny knack for making otherwise ordinary veggies, truly extraordinary. Moreover, it should be noted that this creation does include Guanciale, extremely tender salt-cured pig's jowl that makes anything taste unbelievable. Jacked up with pugnacious flavor that is often quietly hiding away among the other players in a dish, guanciale is the Barry Bonds of the cured meat world, making Pancetta (as good as it is) seem like Spam (no offense to Spam). That in mind, the combination of mild squash on top of the minty snap of celery root, was a nice background to the addicting super-salty zing of the guanciale. This salad is a must order for anyone who is willing to step into the major leagues of salty and sweet.

As we sulked over eating all the Guanciale, our Primi (pasta) arrived to lift our spirits. Meghan's Gnocchi with Sausage and Fennel were as gravity-defying as can be and gently tossed in a rocksteady sausage ragu that obviated any need for chunks of sausage in the dish. (Though I wouldn't have have minded them anyway.)

My Spaghetti Carbonara arrived as a pile of piping hot thin spaghetti enveloped in a velvety emulsion of raw egg and cheese, intertwined with diced green onions and dangerously large chunks of our lovely friend, guanciale. As the heat of the pasta cooks the egg, the sauce thickens and intensifies in flavor, making each bite better than the one before. In all honesty, this was the most accurate and flamboyant Carbonara I've ever had in all my life. I implore anyone who snoots at this ageless preparation because of the raw egg, to try Lupa's version. You'll stop worrying about salmonella, and start concerning yourself with getting your hands on more guanciale.

Though I usually refrain from talking about sweets (or ordering them for that matter), Lupa is the one instance where Meghan doesn't have to convince me to succumb to HER sweet tooth. This is because Lupa serves what has come to be my favorite dessert in all of New York City; Biscotti with Vino Dolce. Simply, you dip the crunchy homemade biscotti into the sweet wine before each bite. As the wet almond biscotti concedes its crunch to the bittersweet wine, a spicy, tannic aftertaste lingers on your tongue making subsequent dips increasingly irresistible. In essence, this is milk and cookies for the grown-ups.

This Village institution's ferocity for flavor and authenticity is tamed only by its docile, almost maternal approach to the dining experience. It should then be no wonder that "Lupa" is italian for "She-Wolf". I think you would be silly not to risk being bitten.

Food: A
Ambiance: A
Service: A-
Experience in a thought: "One of the best dining experiences in all of New York."


Lupa
170 Thompson St (between Bleecker & Houston)
212 982-5089