DINING OUT:
APPETITO (4/05)

by Nancy Roberts

Appetito Ristorante Italiano (View Map)
101 East WaterStreet
Hanover Square, Downtown Syracuse
(315) 422-2340

The very charming waitress who served us at APPETITO agreed: the Northeast, and Central New York in particular, is blessed with excellent Italian restaurants. Anyone who has traveled outside our area and eaten ‘Italian’ is likely to have been disappointed. Bagels, salt potatoes, and good Italian food: they’re just part of northeastern cuisine culture.
So naturally, we’ve all come to expect a better-than-average dinner at a restaurant that bills itself ‘traditional Italian and Sicilian cuisine.’ Appetito went far beyond that.

The Tuesday night we stopped in was quiet, a point we discussed at some length with owner, Nino Vitale. “Visit your local restaurants,” he urged. “The food is much better, and you’re supporting local business. Chain restaurants are the cancer of this industry, and you can write that down.”

APPETITO occupies the space that most recently housed TSUNAMI, an adventure in Pan-Asian dining, also owned and operated by Vitale. “We made the switch in January, 2004,” he explained. “It wasn’t making it as I’d wanted. It was more of a place to go for special occasions. So I needed to make a change.”

But as the 32-year-old owner has spent more than half of his life in the food business, it’s not likely he would stray far from his first love. His father, born in Palermo, Italy, got Nino his first job: in a pizzeria in Auburn. “I washed dishes, did just about everything, and when I was twenty, I purchased my first restaurant in Auburn.” The restaurant, GINO AND JOE’S, served pizza, as well as standard Italian fare: ziti, manicotti, spaghetti. Take out or eat in.
He ran the business for nine years, and eventually flirted with the idea of getting out. “But like Michael says in THE GODFATHER, just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in.”

He did leave Auburn, and he and a business partner opened TSUNAMI. His father, he tells us, “didn’t get it. ‘You should put some meatballs on the menu,’ he told me. Can’t do that! ‘How about hamburgers?’”
Maybe dad was onto something.

Eventually, Vitale did get back to his roots, and the result was APPETITO.

Our measure of his decision: an unqualified success.

We were presented with the martini and wine list and the dinner menu. Our waitress wasted no time in bringing a spice plate and fresh Columbus Bakery bread. She poured oil (first press extra Virgin Olive Oil, Vitale told us; and there is a difference!) on the spice plate and left us to enjoy our bread and our menus.

While my companion and I didn’t drink, I did study the martini and wine menu, and found it intriguing and satisfactorily broad. A tipsy collection of Virgintinis, Afterglowtinis, and Berry Blews was balanced with a limited but carefully selected list of whites from California, New York, and Italy, and Italian, Washington and Californian reds. “The wine list was a lot larger a month ago,” Vitale told us. “I brought it down to seven wines and made them all house wines. They are all good wines, and you can buy a bottle or a glass. You’ll get a good wine no matter what you choose.”
Vitale also edited his menu down to the best of the best, and since nothing we chose was anything less that outstanding, we would have to agree.

In fact, the biggest problem with the entire evening was an excess of good! The portions were large, and each course so delicious it was difficult to save room for the next. I would have been more than satisfied with my appetizer, the good dipped bread and the salad. But I could hardly pass on my Lasagna della Mama, could I?

I started my meal with Arancine Siciliane ($6.25), which I ordered strictly because I’d never heard of it before. It means, in Italian, “Little Orange,” though ‘little’ is hardly the word for two baseball-sized balls of delicately breaded rice surrounding mozzarella cheese, lightly fried to a golden brown and served on marinara sauce. Somehow, “rice balls” doesn’t do these treats justice. Though my companion ordered Calamari Fritti ($7.50; Lightly floured squid fried to a golden crisp, served with marinara), she was so taken with the Arancine, between the two of us we devoured the serving.
I followed with a house salad, served as part of the meal, and my companion had a lovely chicken soup: dark, meaty, and fragrant. Since I am something of a salad connoisseur, I make a point of trying the salad at most of the restaurants I visit. The treatment of the fresh ingredients of salads seems to me to be a good indicator of the overall attitude toward the food. This salad was perfect: fresh field greens, with a hint of red onion, pepper and tomato, and just the right amount of vinaigrette — no small accomplishment in a world where most salads are overdressed or aging.

We were then treated to Nino Vitale’s most recent invention: Toscano Soup. Now I found myself wishing I had just had soup and salad. The creamy soup featured ground sausage, potato and pancetta. Though we had no need to do so, the waitress did let us know that all the dishes at APPETITO are made to order, so any ingredient can be removed or substituted.

For a main course, my friend chose Melanzana alla Parmigiana ($12.95). Vitale tells us his eggplant is sauteed in olive oil rather than fried before being baked, and he feels this makes all the difference. My friend’s extended family is Italian: she pronounced it “just right.”

My main course was Lazagna della Mama ($13.95), a dish created, and literally made by, Vitale’s mother, Lina Vitale. “Some people are surprised by our sauce,” Vitale said. “It’s sweeter than usual — we add sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes.” The lasagna was sweet and creamy, a delicious combination of tomato sauce, Bechamel sauce, meat, mozzarella and ricotta cheeses.

That Vitale’s mother and father figure in the menu is no surprise. “I come from a very traditional Italian family,” Vitale said. There is a picture of his father’s hometown on the cover of the Appetito menu. “It’s a beautiful place,” says Vitale. “You have to stop to let the cows walk by, or the shepherds with sheep. Life there revolves around food. Family and food.”

Vitale was raised in that tradition. Today, his mother and father contribute to the restaurant, making manicotti, lasagna, arancine. His father, he says, now loves his restaurant, and loves the fact that he can find something ‘good’ to eat there.
Food and family: Vitale says he enjoys the business not only because of the food, but because “I enjoy meeting people. We had a reservation come in recently from Massachusetts. They were coming to town, and looked on the web for a place to eat, and found us. They are from Palermo originally. The last name was Vitale. They wanted to meet me. So you never know.”

Vitale’s ultimate goal, he says, is to create a dish that stands, out, that is his signature dish for the restaurant.
As we managed just a couple of bites of a dark, rich chocolate mousse cake, my companion and I were convinced he had succeeded. We just couldn’t decide which of the items we’d tasted was the one.

There’s only one solution: go back and see if we can figure it out! Appetito Ristorante Italiano • 101 E. Water Street • Hanover Square, Syracuse NY 13202 • 315-422-2340
Also check out their ad on Pg. 16 with a $10 off coupon.