Queen for a Day

February 28th has come and gone, which means that at long last I have dined at Rao’s. I booked a table back in November when the reservation man took pity on me and a friend.

Readers, here is my dilemma: I have officially gone from being a nobody-outsider to—and I’ll be straight here—a celebrity insider. My position as objective food critic has thus been compromised and with this I struggle. Do I post a glowing review to stay in the good graces of Frankie and his crew, or do I forge ahead as the steely journalist I am and call it like I saw it? There is no easy answer, but I will do my best to stay true to my editorial scruples.

At 9:20pm last Thursday, three friends and I arrived at Rao’s, a few minutes before our reservation. The corner spot was packed and festive. The large round tables were stuffed with men, mostly burly and/or of a certain age. It’s a throwback, to be sure, and feels like a movie set. There was a convivial mood and the whole place was aglow.

As we waited to be seated, owner Frank Pellegrino greeted our group as if he cared about our comfort. It’s sad, really, how rumpled one usually feels dining out in New York. You drop hundreds of dollars only to be sneered at or made to feel like they’re doing you a favor. But not at Rao’s. From start to finish we received smiles, generosity and even a scant amount of admiration, as if we were, well, Denzel Washington, who also happened to be dining at Rao’s that night. But Denzel and his companion, who Victor spotted, was seated at the worst seat in the house—the deuce by the door. By contrast, we were seated at one of the half dozen booths that line the main dining area. We actually received better treatment than Denzel, something I pointed out to the polo-shirted maître d’. “You got it,” he said.

It turns out Denzel had just shown up without a reservation and Rao’s doesn’t accommodate stars simply because they are stars. It honors its reservations and doesn’t appear to kowtow to celebs, or so it seemed on Thursday. (Other bold-faced names in the house that night: actor Vince Curatola, who played the venerable Johnny “Sack” Sacramoni on the Sopranos and the actor who played Fiori (what’s his name??), Tony Soprano’s Sicilian heavy, neither of whom had a table.)

The nice gentleman who keeps the reservation book also recited the night’s verbal menu. We started with fried mozzarella and roasted red peppers. The bricks of breaded and fried cheese sat on a thin layer of red sauce. They were tasty, but not particularly flavorful. I would have welcomed a squirt of lemon or some salt. It felt a little Bennigan’s but who doesn’t love melty crispy fried cheese? The peppers, tossed with pine nuts and raisins, were wonderfully sweet.

For the pasta course (it’s all family style chez Rao), we chose the orechiette with broccoli rabe and sausage and the pasta puttanesca. The little ears were divine in garlic and oil and the sausage, which comes from Queens, was a little spicy and totally succulent. Instead of the puttanesca, however, we were served a rigatoni in what I think was an Amatriciana sauce, but with ham, not bacon. And I almost forgot about the two tremendous meatballs in red sauce.

Ok, so you’re probably thinking, god how boring! But I assure you, we were not bored. What makes Rao’s food so good and the food in Italy so fabulous: the quality and freshness of the few ingredients on the plate. The red sauce with the rigatoni had the perfect balance of sweetness, acidity and salt. There’s a healthy amount of superb olive oil and a ton of garlic added to the San Marzano tomatoes. That’s it. Done! The meatballs were tasty and light but I’ve never been able to get behind hunks of meat that size. Why not smaller and a little more manageable?

(Oh, in case you were worried about Denzel and his crappyjack table, he and his companion eventually secured a booth in the main dining room shortly after we sat down. From my vantage point I could spy the dome of his head.)

I was completely distracted by everything—the tables of would-be power brokers, the small- and big-screen stars and the shockingly friendly service we received. I barely participated in the table conversation but was a team player when it came to food consumption.

For entrees, it was the signature lemon chicken and steak. The chicken: eah. Not great. The skin tasted of bitter burnt garlic and the seasoning was off. A few bites were enough for me. The steak, on the other hand, was delectable. So tender you could cut it with a butter knife and fatty in all the right ways. The spicy seasoning wasn’t overpowering and it was cooked to rare perfection.

Our waiter said he couldn’t believe how much we ate. He said the last people to eat all their pasta were a group of very large men. I’m still not sure if he was teasing us, as we were three not terribly large women and one average-size (but not at all average!) man.

I stepped into the ladies room and overheard two women talking about the cleanse they were planning for the next week, but not before they had dessert. Hmmn.

We were far too stuffed for dessert, but happily sipped (and cleansed with) complimentary digestives (two, in my case). We chatted with the bartender, who’s been slinging liquor there for 33 years. I harassed the lord of reservations to book another table and he said I had to come back in November. Harrumph!

Anna Maria insisted on speaking to Denzel and getting his autograph. We thought that would be better than asking to take his picture (the only other choice she gave us) but in the sobering light, both activities seem deeply regrettable. The whole idea of Rao’s is that every guest is treated like, well, Denzel. Being a fine actor or a hot model doesn’t mean as much or, in some cases, anything at Rao’s. Stars go there to be treated like the masses and the masses go there to be treated like the stars. It’s a cozy arrangement that results, I speculate, in someone like Denzel Washington being equally as excited as we were to have scored a table at Rao’s. I’ll be sure to ask him the next time we hang.
(Anna Maria ended up taking this picture as D tried to slink out. I wouldn’t say he was exactly pleased…)

Bursting and over-stimulated, we stumbled out of the restaurant past 11:30, the last ones to go. It’s hard to peel yourself away from a place that makes you feel like an honest-to-goodness insider.