Pasta, pasta

Radici keeps the Italian vibe flowing

By Kathy Gunst

Radici

142 Congress Street, Portsmouth, NH (603) 373-6464. Open Sun. through Thurs. from 5 to 9:30 p.m. and on Fri. and Sat. from 5 to 10 p.m. No reservations accepted. Full bar. All major credit cards accepted.

THE OLD ELVIS ROOM: Radici has cleaned things up a bit.

I’m sure you’ve played this game: If you were stuck on a desert island and could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? My answer is always the same: pasta, pasta, pasta. It’s the ultimate comfort food, endlessly interesting, with a texture and flavor that always satisfies.

Clearly I’m not alone in my passion. It seems that no matter how many Italian restaurants a town has there is always room for one more. This may explain why Portsmouth’s newest hot spot, Radici, is such an overnight sensation. On a recent Friday night the waiting line was out the door, and no one seemed the least bit miffed at the news that they might have to wait for close to an hour before being seated.

Radici, which the maitre d’ informed us means “root” in Italian, is a storefront restaurant in the truest sense. Located in the space formerly occupied by the Elvis Room (a coffee bar and alternative music hangout), the room is simple with putty colored walls decorated with color photographs of Italy — a clean, hip look. The view out the plate-glass windows is mostly of traffic and pedestrians on Congress Street, and a Japanese restaurant across the street. There are only about a dozen tables, each simply set with small candles. By the time this review appears, a second room will have opened, seating another 36 customers. Come winter, the restaurant will offer live music and dancing on weekends — another plus for Portsmouth.

Shortly after we were seated, our waitress brought out a basket of foccaccia accompanied by a creamy white bean dip and a plate of golden, aromatic Italian olive oil, generously sprinkled with freshly ground pepper. We sat back, watched the scene and relaxed to the jazz and mellow rock that was playing at just the right volume. There’s a full bar in the back of the room — a nice counter where you can sit and eat, or just have a drink and chat with the bartender. The wine list focuses primarily on Italian and California bottles (some of them organic), and offers a limited, but good selection of wine by the glass.

We began with a baby spinach salad. A huge bowl was filled with tender, exceedingly fresh baby spinach leaves, grilled savory wedges of pears and apples, sun-dried cranberries, toasted pine nuts, and chunks of gorgonzola cheese, all drizzled with a fresh-tasting ginger dressing.

The gnocchi appetizer was a small bowl of intense flavor. Tender gnocchi were mixed with smoky, meaty proscuitto and capicola, as well as baby spinach wilted from the heat of the gnocchi. These ingredients were tossed with an intensely creamy sauce with a dollop of fresh pesto in the center. Luckily, it was a small portion because the richness of this dish could ruin your appetite for anything else to come. I could have easily eaten this dish as a main course. It was that satisfying.

Have you ever had the feeling when you’re sitting in a restaurant waiting for your dinner that you can’t stop watching the food come out of the kitchen — despite the fact that your dining companion is someone you actually want to be with? Well that’s what happened at Radici. Each dish that came out of the kitchen looked better than the one that preceded it. The Mussels Provencal looked amazing and I caught a distinct whiff of garlic and capers as it passed by. I couldn’t stop staring at the Grilled Vegetable Salad with fresh grilled flatbread or the Fresh Herb Risotto, topped with a dusting of Parmesan cheese, that passed us by.

There are several vegetarian specialties offered at Radici. While we waited for our table, we met an old friend just leaving. She raved about the number of choices for a vegetarian, lamenting the fact that when she usually goes out to a restaurant there are only the obligatory one or two vegetarian dishes to choose from.

My husband took her recommendation and chose the Pasta All’ Olio — another huge bowl, filled with tender penne pasta tossed with fresh basil, plenty of garlic, tomatoes, white Tuscan beans, artichoke hearts, and olives. It was bursting with good flavors and textures.

I ordered the Osso Buco. Even though this stew of braised veal shanks is offered in most Italian restaurants, it’s not easy to make well. And I have to admit, my expectations were not high. But I was very pleasantly surprised. Braised veal shanks with roasted shallots, tomatoes (not bitter tomato paste, but fresh tomatoes), and wild mushrooms were bathed in a dense, dark sauce, seasoned with pungent rosemary. The sauce was so thick and full of nuance that I had to eat it very slowly. There did not appear to be any flour used to thicken the sauce. It was just fully flavored stew juices reduced to their essence. The veal was so tender it nearly fell off the bone. A side dish of grilled, slightly al dente asparagus was fabulous, but the mashed potatoes were just . . . mashed potatoes. Nothing wrong with them, but they need more fluff, more seasoning, more flavor.

For dessert we ordered the chocolate cannoli and were disappointed. The chocolate cream inside the crunchy cannoli shell had an off-putting, granular texture. The waitress was hugely apologetic, immediately insisting she would remove the dessert from our bill. The manager came over to talk about the “problem” (he really seemed to care) and urged us to try the tiramisu. My husband had just polished off a really good, strong espresso and we were fully sated, but when he told us the Italian classic was fresh baked each day we acquiesced. It was, in fact, delicious — a light, moist cake, soaked in rum and layered with cream.

By the time we got up to go it was close to 9 p.m. and people were still pouring into the place. “Was it worth the wait?” a twenty-something woman with tight black pants and a white peasant top asked me. I told her yes, definitely, and she nodded her short-cropped, totally hip haircut and said “Cool. Very cool. Because I definitely need some good pasta.”