The good news is that Modo Mio’s food, when it’s good, is every bit as exciting and satisfying as the best Italian restaurants in this city. Chef Peter McAndrews’ signature combination of Italian classics and supremely of-the-moment twists brings a sense of excitement to dining here that is unfortunately lacking from so many other spots in town whose inspiration comes from the general direction of the boot.
The bad news is that I cannot think of many other restaurants here—BYOB or not, Italian or not—whose service does so much to undermine the overall experience. For while it began harmlessly enough, with only a few mispronunciations of key dishes to perk up my ears and run the proverbial red-flag up the pole, the service ended up going south from there. And I don’t mean to Sicily.
In fact, it began poorly even before I arrived: Calling to make a reservation, I ended up on the line with a person of such low enthusiasm, such monotonal vocal tendencies, such (let’s make up a phrase here) telephonic ineptitude, that I felt as if I was back in college, dealing with a particular roommate I had who, if memory serves, cracked exactly three smiles that year.
As far as the waitress went, she started off the evening in the weeds and never managed to hack her way out—even once the dining room had cleared out towards the end of the night. From bringing the bread out barely a minute before the first courses arrived to making us wait nearly ten minutes before offering to go over the dessert selections, I did not, at any point, feel as if I was being taken care of. Rather, the experience was analogous to that of a castaway, bobbing up and down, unaided and unguided, upon the big blue sea.
Fortunately, these seas were filled with some pretty remarkable food—gustatory life-rafts, if you will. That bread, for example, was extraordinary: A gargantuan homemade Puglian loaf that generally weighs in at 15 pounds during the week and 20 on weekends, that takes around four and a half hours to cook, that sits there in all its yeasty glory off to the side encased in a dense, spirit-reaffirming crust of thick rusticity and perfectly calibrated saltiness.
Chick pea fritter—what in Sicily is called panelle—was a silky anchor for beautifully charred shrimp, and the whole assembly was given a sense of brightness by a nice rough chop of fresh mint that balanced out the smokier bits. Octopus salad managed the neat trick of seamlessly juxtaposing the textures of cannellini and that cephalopod. Deliriously peppery arugula and just the right amount of lemon juice sealed the deal: This was an antipasto to remember.
Pastas were equally successful. Silky strands of pappardelle—made fresh daily from an egg-yolk rich Piedmontese recipe—were more than just delivery mechanisms for the rustic meat ragu. In fact, even beyond that sauce—a riff on Bolognese made with prosciutto, pork, veal, and chicken livers—the toothsome texture of that pasta was remarkable in its own right. And cappellaci, cap-shaped pasta filled with a sweet puree of squash and finished with a sage brown-butter and sun-dried cherries, found the often slippery middle ground between sweet and savory with ease.
Our meat and fish, however, unfortunately fell short of what the other dishes had seemed to promise. Short ribs braised in red wine and porcini juice, while possessed of excellent flavor and a well-calibrated sense of balance, were so gristly that they were rather difficult to eat.
Tuna, while good, could have been great if—here we go again—the service hadn’t gotten in the way. The reduced balsamic and pomegranate sauce was well-paired with the heartiness of the fish, and the accompanying roasted beet and portabello salad was an unexpected highlight of the presentation. But when ordered rare, the waitress made a lemon face (pursed lips, scrunched bridge of the nose) and said, a bit fearfully, that it would arrive (gasp!) not very warm in the center. Thinking that perhaps the fish that evening wasn’t up to its seagoing snuff, we asked how the chef usually cooked it. Medium rare was the reply, and assuming that the kitchen knew best, we decided to defer to the waitress.
That, sadly, was a mistake: What could have been a lovely piece of fish arrived at the table approaching the texture of albacore, save a preciously thin line of pink running through the center.
So while the food, as its best, absolutely justified all the buzz Modo Mio has been getting since it opened back in April, a whole lot of work needs to be done in the front of the house. It’s difficult to relax and give in to the pure sensual pleasure that finely prepared food has to offer if you’re worried the entire time about the service. Therein lies the difference between great food and a great meal.
