DINING OUT:
GENTILE'S (7/03)

305 Burnet Avenue
(315) 474 - 8258

There’s a new class act in Syracuse, and it’s GENTILE’S RESTAURANT, located at 305 Burnet Avenue, onetime home of TO THE MOON. The new owners and hosts are Charlene and Kevin Gentile, a husband-wife team who conceived of the upscale “eclectic Italian” approach and employed it to create their dream project here in Syracuse. Everything appears to be clicking; though the restaurant has only been open for six weeks (at the time of this writing), when we visited on a recent Saturday evening, both the bar and adjoining dining room quickly filled up, a rarity for new properties.

The restaurant serves lunch Tuesday through Friday from 11:30 A.M. to 3 P.M., a ‘mid-day affair’ of cocktails from four to six p.m., and dinner Tuesday through Thursday, from 5 to 9 P.M., and Friday and Saturday, five to 10:30 P.M. Lunch includes gourmet pizzas (caramelized onion and BBQ chicken or eggplant, artichoke heart, broccoli and mushroom) at $7.95 a piece. Lunchtime appetizers include Greens Gentile (lunch serving, $7.95), composed of sauteed escarole mixed with spicy sausage, panchetta, cherry peppers, and broccoli, all topped with cheese and toasted bread crumbs. We did try this item, and found it uniquely tasty, appealing in a sweet-spicy manner.

Also at $7.95 is fried calamari and, for $8.95, a Grilled Veggie Plate, including portabella mushroom, eggplant, onion, plum tomato, and peppers, grilled and then drizzled with olive oil.

Lunchtime salads, all priced at $6.95, include fresh spinach, orange and fennel, hearts of romaine, tomato, and Caesar. All can be ordered with chicken for $1.50 extra. Pastas, which run between $5.95 and $9.95 (and are served with a chef salad), include choices of Pasta Fagioli, Penne, Duck Filled Angelonti, and Linguini, the latter served with fresh calamari and littleneck clams. A sandwich menu features items priced between $6.95 and $10.25, include a whole wheat wrap, featuring tuna salad with raisins, Granny Smith apples, and mixed greens, turkey facaccia (with Spinach, Brie cheese, and cranberry mayo), veggie facaccia (eggplant, roasted peppers, porbellas and sundried tomato mayo), grilled chicken chiabatta (Portbellas, roasted peppers with mixed greens, and pesto mayo on warm chiabatta bread), and filet steak sandwich. All sandwiches are served with pasta salad, though french fries can be substituted for $1.25 extra and sweet potato fries for $1.95.

When we arrived for a Saturday evening dinner, and studied the menu, which is changed seasonally. This Spring and early summer, the appetizers include a traditional shrimp cocktail ($7.95), as well as some unique items by Chef Kevin which we opted for and enjoyed immensely. The Maryland Crab Cabs ($9.95) are filled with large chunks of fresh meat, then coated with a crust that enhances rather than drowns the white meat inside, and the Old Bay mayonnaise likewise adds to rather than overwhelms the flavor. A subtle Fried Polenta is accompanied by wild mushrooms and a creamy Gorgonzola sauce for $8.95. Other specialties of the house include Beef Carpaccio, served atop arugula with thinly sliced Parmesan cheese, drizzled with truffle oil ($10.95), rolled roasted peppers stuffed with tuna, finished with black olives and basil oil ($7.95), and Mozzarella Fritta, fresh Mozzarella lightly fried in egg batter and served with an anchovy tomato sauce ($7.95).

The dinner menu includes soup Du jour ($2.50 a cup, $3.50 a bowl), and salads, priced between $3.50 and $7.95, including Caesar, tomato, and fresh spinach. We were full enough after the bountiful appetizers to skip these and go directly for the entrees. As our son accompanied my husband and myself, we were able to try three different items.

A steak eater, I opted for the Grilled New York Strip ($15.95), served in marsala wine sauce with shitake mushrooms, and topped with toasted bread crumbs. As always, I ordered mine medium rare, with the emphasis on the rare, and the dish was cooked to perfection. The meat was of the highest quality and the impressive presentation visually added to the enjoyment. My son tried one of the evening’s specials, an immense Seafood Chiopinni that included not only the expected shrimp and clams but also delightful touches of exotic fish. Though he is a large eater, he had to take more than half of it home, where the remainders served as a second meal. A veal lover, my husband had the evening’s special grilled Veal Chop; it was immense, tender, and he claims to have never tasted a better one.

The regular menu also features a different variation on the Veal Chop. Served Bologna style, it is pan seared and breaded, and topped with sliced prcosciutto and portabella mushrooms in a rich rosemary flavored Parmesan at $20.95. Another steak item on the menu is the 8 oz filet, basking in a rich red wine sauce that has been enhanced by prosciutto and portabella mushrooms at $18.95. Other entrees, which range in price from $14.95 to $18.95, include several variations on chicken breast, long island duckling, red snapper, and cognac flavored lobster tail.

There is a dessert tray with several homemade cakes and other items, including a chocolate cake that I delighted in and a raspberry one that was perfect for my husband. The Creme Brulle Martini is the house’s signature feature here.

Those in the mood for a lighter supper can order from the gourmet pizzas (veggie for $8.95, sliced filet pizza for $9.95). There are also a number of pasta and risotto dishes, priced between $10.95 and $16.95, ranging in style from a vegetarian’s delight of mixed natural foods over angel hair pasta to a mixed seafood dish that includes mussels, clams, shrimp, and scallops.

We followed our visit up with a phone call to the husband and wife team that has put Gentile’s into operation as a posh place with attractive, well trained servers and a relaxed but upscale atmosphere. Both Ken and Charlene are Utica natives. He worked at various restaurants there, and learned the art of cuisine ‘by doing’ at numerous jobs, while she pursued a Marketing degree at the SUNY-TECH college. They moved to the New York City area for three years, where Ken served as head chef at the Cafe Newport in Jersey City. He had proven himself as a the chef at Utica’s well-regarded Chesterfield restaurant. The couple returned to central New York when friends asked him to open a restaurant in New Hartford, then moving over to Giorgio’s Lyncourt Grill on Court Street, Syracuse.

The dream was to someday have a place of their own, which Kevin and Charlene could build—in terms of ambience and atmosphere as well as menu—from the ground up. Kevin had dined at TO THE MOON several years earlier, and the building impressed him. When that property became available, he and Charlene knew it was time to act. The cuisine is based on Northern Italian, but with (in Charlene’s words) “different infusions,” while the look is Old World but decidedly updated.

One unique feature of the restaurant is that Kevin likes to visit the tables of guests—newcomers as well as people who have already proven to be regulars—and ask if there is anything special they might want to have prepared. Though the menu is purposefully kept limited to insure that all the offered dishes are available and prepared perfectly, Kevin is also willing to, within reason, try and prepare something special that a guest may be in the mood for, even though it is not listed. On Wednesday evenings, a ‘Quiz Kevin’ session is available. A guest can come up with any four ingredients, and Kevin will then head back to the kitchen to prepare a three course meal based on those items. In addition to an intriguing sense of improvisation that strikes us as unique in the area, this also adds an element of collaboration—to the best of our knowledge, the first “interactive dining experience” in Central New York.
For reservations or more specific information, call 474 - 8258. Please mention that you read about GENTILE’S in the “Dining Out” column of TABLE HOPPING!