Where: Sportello in Boston
When: Last Friday night
What: Mustard Green Agnolotti with lamb, fava, rapini.
Late spring flavors: fragile pasta filled with sautéed greens and cheese, in a bowl with melting braised lamb, nutty broccoli rabe, and luscious little fava beans; topped with shaved parmigiano-reggiano. Delicious, unexpectedly rich, impossible to finish.
More: Creamy burrata with sweet braised cippolline with chestnut honey and crisp slices of lacy country bread; spring salad of fennel and celery root with lemon, olive oil and parmigiano reggiano; pale green parsley risotto with fresh morels and sautéed pancetta; milk chocolate semi-freddo with salted toffee sauce and hazelnuts. Washed it all down with many glasses of prosecco.
Parsley risotto with fresh morels, strips of sauteed pancetta and shaved parmigiano-reggiano.
Sportello is the latest (2008) entry in chef Barbara Lynch’s burgeoning Boston culinary empire. Sleek white minimalist interior with rustic wood columns and just two tables at the back. Everyone else sits at a trio of decidedly un-Woolworth's-like U-shaped “lunch counters”--hence "sportello"--with casual but attentive service. Cuisine is “market driven:” whatever’s fresh at the moment turns up on the trattoria-esque Italian menu. Stylish crowd, no make up, deceptively downscale jewelry and clothing in luxurious fabrics. What recession?
Cited in the April 2009 Saveur as No. 2 in a list of “12 Restaurants That Matter.” Corby Kummer wrote: “…pastas of a delicacy and subtlety of flavor that no Irish girl has any business knowing how to make…”
Basics: Sportello, 348 Congress Street, Boston, Massachusetts. Phone: 617-737-1234. www.sportelloboston.com