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you crave it
The flavor made famous by Uncle Otto’s European
Eatery is new available at KEBA! Everyone's favorite
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KEBA : li:.:
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) $2 with purchase (
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GET TO KNOW THE
CLASSIFIED AD RATES
ITALIAN ENCORE
What Goes Around: Way, way back in 2003, Stefano Volpi
and Salvatore Bianco opened Bischero in the Bottleworks on
Prince, building in a beautiful brick pizza oven and focusing
on fine Italian dining. After a few rough summers, they moved
on, and the space became a revolving door of ownership and
restaurants, all vaguely Italian but none with the same com
mitment to quality of the initial incarnation. Volpi helped
start Mirko Pasta, which is not a bad thing in its own right at
a lower price-point, but Bianco is back in the original space,
with a restaurant now called A Tavola! (237 Prince Ave.) that
is, despite some simplification of the menu, basically what we
once knew as Bischero. It's a longish story and journey, but, at
least for now, and at least for my taste buds, it's a happy end
ing. Finally, someone who knows how to use that oven again,
rather than toasting pizzas in it briefly before setting them
under the heat lamp on the ledge of the kitchen to wilt.
Being from Atlanta rather than up north, where real Italian
restaurants can be found on every corner, I probably can't
really consider myself an expert, but I recruited a friend from
Pennsylvania who refuses to eat out for Italian, and all the
offerings passed muster with her. If I had to nitpick, I'd point
out the near-impossibility of baking a crust evenly from edge
to middle while maintaining delicacy—if you don't want a
cracker or the kind of mouthful of dough you'll get from most
pizza, you're going to get a wee bit of sogginess in the center,
even with ingredients sparsely applied the way they should be.
It still feels a little gauche to fold over your slice in a relatively
nice restaurant,Jjut the waitress will encourage you to go for
it. Dividing your pie (a bargain and a huge amount of food per
person at around S12-S15 each) into triangles is harder still,
but no doubt pizza wheels
for the tables would disap- ...gorgeously salty and
pear into many a handbag
if provided. (It may be smoothly textured,
easier to have the waiter
cut it with a pizza wheel for you.JTm a big fan of Your Pie,
but I don't think it has anything that can match A Tavolal's
topping of turnip greens and thinly sliced sausage, which
demands thoughtful chewing. The one that features pineapple,
Gorgonzola and balsamic, however, may be a bit much.
A pleasant sense of surprise is present throughout, from the
pile of mushrooms served warm in the center of a charcuterie
plate to the real olive oil that comes with the bread and wakes
up your nostrils. Please note that that bread is perhaps the
best thing you will eat all night. Push the focaccia to the side
and dig into the slices of the other stuff, which is gorgeously
salty and smoothly textured. Really, even carbophobes would
pretty much dig through the dumpster for a leftover bag of
it. The saltimbocca alia romana (veal scaloppine in a creamy
sauce) was unexpectedly delicious as well, despite not looking
like much, with well-seasoned spinach and potatoes on the
side. The pastas, all made in-house (or most made in-house,
depending on who answers your questions), are nicely done,
too, not gluey or heavy the way they can often turn out.
I would certainly thank my stars if I never had to sit
through another round of Andrea Bocelli's "Con te Partiro,"
and the decor could use a shot of life, but the restaurant has
trained its staff well. Even when there were far too many of
them, as in its early weeks, when the dining room was still
finding its audience, they never slouched and gossiped with
one another, channeling their energy instead into folding nap
kins or refilling the water glasses at every opportunity. There
is, in fact, a certain polish aspired to throughout, most clearly
exemplified in the fact that, while A Tavola! will do take-out
orders, it will not pop your pizza into the oven before you
arrive, lest it be handed to you at a temperature other than
the precise one it desires. The restaurant only does dinner at
present (every night but Sunday), has beer and wine, and still
possesses a very nice patio out front.
What Up?: The not very secret news that Hugh Acheson,
Charles Ramsey and Peter Dale of Five and Ten and The
National are opening up a restaurant in Atlanta is becoming
less secret by the day. Expect a clever take on meat-and-three
at Peachtree and 10th streets, across the street from the
Margaret Mitchell House, and, no, this doesn't mean they're
abandoning us for greener pastures.
Hillary Brown
10 FLAGPOLE.COM • SEPTEMBER 2,2009