Let’s start with the dining room, which riffs on the source material but doesn’t bada-bing you in the face with it.
Once you start kicking the tufted cushions on Orfano, however, it becomes crystal-clear how thoroughly modern millennio a revival it is. Fans of Faison’s Rocca days-that brief period in 2010 when she cooked extraordinary modern Ligurian for a dining public still not quite hip to pasta portioned as a modest midcourse-should appreciate the irony that her long-awaited return to the genre would be a Rat Pack–era period piece. Orfano harkens back much farther: to the upscale Italian steakhouses that flourished in the mid-20th century, like the original Palm in New York or Chicago’s Gene & Georgetti. And that’s not referring to the balsamic-glazed North End joints phoning it in from the ’90s with tourist-grade chicken Marsala. This time around, Faison has laid her Midas touch on throwback Italian-American dining. Every Faison venture reminds me of a Broadway show plucked from some gritty East Village workshop that somehow preserved its indie sensibility despite the fancy new budget.
GALLANT VODKA REVIEW PLUS
There will be ambitious food and drink, opulent staging, and moving parts galore, plus a dash of edgy sass.
The latest Tiffani Faison production is up and running, folks, and if you’ve caught any of the star chef’s string of Fenway hits-her valentine to southern barbecue (Sweet Cheeks), her Southeast Asian travelogue (Tiger Mama), her glitter-and-gimlets snackerie (Fool’s Errand)-you have a decent idea of what you’re in for. From sizzling steaks to red-sauce reinventions like “pizza lasagne,” swanky Orfano covers Italian-Americana with attitude.
0 kommentar(er)
