Rione X1 and "Roman-Jewish Ghetto Cuisine" in Toronto's Wychwood Park/Hillcrest Village
Rione X1 and "Roman-Jewish Ghetto Cuisine" in
Wychwood Park/Hillcrest Village
BY BRYAN LAVERY
As anyone who reads my columns regularly is
aware, I have been a student of the Italian kitchen for the last thirty years,
so genuine regional Italian cooking resonates with me.
Until the unification of Italy in 1861, one
could not speak of a national cuisine. The reality of Italian cookery is an
amalgamation of distinct regional cuisines more diverse than anywhere else in
Europe.
Like the rest of Italy, Rome is made of many
districts, each with distinctive traditional specialities. Additional subsets of cuisines remain both
strongly regional and localized.
The self-proclaimed "Roman-Jewish Ghetto” cuisine, a form of cucina povera (literally meaning
the impoverished kitchen) distinguishes
the newly opened Rione X1, from a number
of other Italian-inspired restaurants on the Wychwood/Hillcrest Village
restaurant strip in Toronto.
The inspiration for
Rione X1, I am told by the waiter, comes from the cobble-stoned Jewish ghetto
in Rome, which originated in the mid 1500’s. The concept is the invention of Danilo and Sandrelle Scimo of Pizza e Pazzi who
brought Neapolitan hand-crafted pizza to prominence in the area. Rione X1 literally means region eleven,
referring to the 11th of the 14 regions of Medieval Rome.
Rione X1 is not to be mistaken for the ersatz
trattorias that seem to have a pathological focus on faux-Italian cuisine. The
offerings may be simple, but they are classic, prepared by Chef Pena Lellimo, with traditional ingredients and executed with some finesse and an eye
for presentation.
Dinner begins with a generous basket of good
Calabrese bread, which is both rustic and delicious. The best-known dish from the Roman-Jewish repertoire
is carciofi alla giudea, or
artichokes Jewish style. The dish has several variations, depending on where
you have it and the type of artichoke used. Traditionally the artichokes are of
the Romanesco variety. At Rione X1 the artichokes are the
long-stemmed variety, deep fried until brown, crisp and crunchy, flaky in parts
and served with a wedge of lemon. On another visit they are just the fanned-out
globes (artichoke heads) Both times they are a revelation and alone, they are
worth the visit to Rione X1.
The menu is designed to be shared. After the artichokes, we began with a board of crostini con alici e burrata: a mass of arugula
served with a large crostini, in the centre of the platter was a ball of fresh and creamy burrata
(the outer shell was a solid pouch enclosing fresh cream and mozzarella) surrounded by “heirloom” and sun dried
tomatoes. Perfectly charred radicchio was a great accompaniment to the dish
but the promised anchovies were absent.
The air-cured bresaola is a
stand-out appetizer, served again on a bed of arugula with thinly but
generously shaved Parmigiano Reggiano.
The owners of Rione X1 may be well-intentioned
but the cuisine does not lives up to the Roman-Jewish Ghetto culinary ethos (one
"Jewish-inspired" piatto consists of salmone con mascarpone:
smoked salmon with mascarpone). More authentic would be carpaccio of baccalà or
a good in-house salt-cured salmon.
The menu features a short list of
pasta dishes that are made in-house. There is ravioli freschi – on my first visit it was sold out due to its popularity–
our waiter explained, that the kitchen is a one-woman show. The fresh ravioli
on our second visit filled with sage and ricotta was uninspiring. The
commercial variety that we were served the following evening just down the street at
Ferro Bar Café was superior.
Gnocchetti sardi in crema di carciofi e gamberetti is the
Sardinian-inspired pasta, aka malloreddus (small morsels of
gnocchi-shaped semolina) with charred artichoke leaves and the tiniest shrimp
imaginable in a gray cream sauce. There are ribbons of fresh tagliatelle with a
chunky (actually it was well-braised) but tender beef ragu.
Also on offer was slightly over-cooked
sedanini (elbow-curved pasta) with
bresaola slivers in an over-salted, eggy carbonara sauce. There is much superior
pasta up the street at chef Giancarlo Carnevale’s PROP restaurant.
Guance di vitello al sughetto are tasty stewed beef cheeks served on mashed potatoes (I had to
ask the waiter what I was eating. At first, I thought it was semolina, it was
so creamy but undistinguishable. For some reason I was expecting polenta or
something a bit more traditional). There is Venetian-style calves liver on the
menu.
Contorni are vegetable side dishes, which you order independently and are
served in a separate dish, never on the same plate as the main course — and
usually pay a premium for. We ordered the ceci al tegamino (sautéed chick peas) which were devoid of
flavour and could use the Yotam Ottolenghi treatment with some ground cumin, cardamom
and allspice. The pan-fried eggplant was unavailable and on another evening it
was merely lacklustre. Other choices consisted of peas and sautéed rapini.
The Roman-Jewish culinary connection is certainly
an interesting concept, though that’s all it appears to be at the moment. However, these are the very early days and
there are still a few things to iron out, too many offerings have the
commercially cultivated arugula as a base. The pasta dishes need help. There are too many repetitive ingredients on
the menu.
First
impressions in new restaurants are important and the word of mouth on the
street is interesting — actually, good. And there has been some hype/advertorial in
the neighbourhood press, which got me through the front door. I tell myself to remember, Rome was not built
in a day and this just might be a new neighbourhood hot spot if the owners give
the kitchen a bit more attention.
One thing I have learned in my many years as a
chef, restaurateur and food reviewer is that “authentic” is not necessarily the
same as “good” and vice versa. My
dispute here is by referencing Roman-Jewish Ghetto traditions, they seem to make a
promise that they are unable to live up to.
Toronto, ON
(647) 748-7882
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