Review: Ristorante La Buca

Ms. Martini often accuses me of being like a 90-year-old man trapped inside a 30-something body. She says it has to do with my Sunday morning cigar and glass of Sherry, irrational fear of Justin Timberlake, and schoolmarm-like obsession with proper service.

But a recent trip to Ristorante La Buca, the subterranean Italian stalwart off Washington Square, chipped away at that third issue. Underground or not, the restaurant helped her to see the light.

The waiters wore tuxedoes. The tables were draped in white cotton. Utensils were replaced between courses. But despite all this formal rigor, the service was relaxed and unforced throughout the meal. Exactly like it should be but so often is not these days.

La Buca—not to be confused with Buca di Beppo, that spawn-of-the-devil chain whose preparations are just about as authentically Italian as General Tso’s chicken is Chinese—is, in a word, a throwback. And a charming one at that.

The food, too, follows this ethos: There is a distinct lack of so-called trendy ingredients, of willfully of-the-moment dishes that attempt to tap into Philadelphia’s culinary zeitgeist. In their place, rather, are smartly conceived, subtly executed items that accomplish exactly what they set out to do. Which is, you know, to taste like really good Tuscan cuisine.

Warm radicchio succeeded where so many other such salads fail: It found that elusive middle ground where the crunch of the leaves was still in evidence, yet softened from the pan’s heat just enough to give them a certain textural echo with the soft sliced and sautéed shiitakes. Salty, smoky American bacon was scattered throughout, lending the dish a real sense of comfort-food depth. Its richness, however, was kept in check by the sweet, pungent balsamic vinegar. Balance, it seems, is something that La Buca’s kitchen does exceptionally well.

Stracchiatella—more commonly known as Italian wedding soup—also achieved a real sense of proportion. Too often, of course, this soup is an unfortunate mush, a haphazard collection of all the requisite ingredients thrown into the bowl with little regard for the delicate dance required of the elements. Here, however, the silky leaves of baby spinach, the small, unexpectedly tender meatballs made of ground veal loin, the elegant strands of egg-and-parmesan mixture, the soul-warming chicken broth—all worked together in a subtle, deceptively simple way, exactly as authentic Tuscan cuisine is supposed to.

Not everything was perfect, of course. Vitello del giudice, a breaded cutlet layered with thin-sliced eggplant, roasted red peppers, and melted parmesan cheese, should have been the kind of exuberant dish so important to the success of Italian restaurants on this side of the pond, a sort of souped-up veal parm for the grown-up set, in a sense.

But it was held back by a bit of overcooking, which resulted in the veal’s slightly dry texture not quite meshing as seamlessly as it should have with its toppings. And the sambucca-spiked tiramisu, a clever, surprisingly logical riff on the standard, suffered from a center that was oddly frosty, as if it had been made earlier, stored at too cold a temperature, and not given enough time to thaw before the journey to the table. Fortunately, the ricotta cheesecake—homemade like nearly everything here—a straightforward slice served with a side of superripe strawberries and fresh whipped cream, was good enough to satisfy on its own.

La Buca’s successes, though, far outweighed the few missteps. The pappardelle ai funghie, for example, seemed to embody all that this restaurant does right. The shiitakes’ deep sense of earthiness was brought to the fore by first roasting them with garlic and olive oil. And the addition of mascarpone, pecorino Romano, and reduced vermouth lent the sauce a silky luxuriousness far greater than the more common Alfredo-like version most restaurants rely on.

And when I asked the waiter what wines they served by the glass, he rattled off a list of the usual suspects—Chianti, cabernet sauvignon, pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc, and chardonnay. I ordered a glass of the Chianti, expecting the same ho-hum juice most restaurants serve, the sort of wine whose raison d’etre is to play a supporting role to the food’s star turn. What I got, however, was an unexpectedly balanced, surprisingly flavorful glass that I actually wanted to linger over a bit. Turns out it’s from owner Giuseppe Giuliani’s hometown right there in the Chianti region.

Ristorante La Buca is full of these kinds of surprises.

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