I’ve filed away Giorgione as a quaint SoHo-ish restaurant for before or after Film Forum outings. It’s a few blocks away, south and west, but not on the best part of Spring for sitting at the tables outside, even on a warm spring night. At rush hour, a slow procession of surly Holland Tunnel traffic blocks any potentially romantic views.
Inside lingered the smoky scent of a wood-burning stove and an endless Beatles-based soundtrack that mingled singles with comparatively obscure album-track favorites (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Getting Better,” “Golden Slumbers,” “Taxman” and one of George’s electric-sitar freakouts). Tables-for-two, wrapped in gleaming industrial sheet-metal, were adorned with a metal pot in which was planted a fresh herb or spice, a different one for each table. Mine was parsley. All very comforting.
My Carciofi Alla Giudea appetizer (“Roman Jewish-style” deep-fried artichokes) resembled large mutant pinecones, the crisp brown petals striated like wood. I don’t recall ever having eaten a food before that rustled. It was all right but I’m suspicious of deep frying items like artichokes because you theoretically end up eating parts of the vegetable you wouldn’t if it was served fresh, those stems and tougher leaves. The best part of it remained the best part of any artichoke, the heart. In the deep-fried version, the clutch of outer armor spares the center a crispy wrath; instead it turns warm, tender, oily and very delicious. On my previously orderly plate, I left a pile of dead autumn leaves, as if disturbed by a mischievous child.
My glasses of cabernet sauvignon complemented my homemade cavatelli entrée, blended with fresh ricotta, bacon, arugula and pepperoncino, as well as the New Yorker article on the comically puritan life of Milton Bradley I read on the side. Tiramisu for dessert was juicy with liqueur and boxed by small sheets of cocoa-streaked chocolate.
The last piece of this candy stayed stubbornly glued to my plate with mascarpone and as I stabbed at it with my fork, two pleasant young ladies arrived and sat at the table placed a New York-style inch away from mine. I had a woozy conversation with the one about her laptop bag. She said she’d be putting it on the floor between us and that I should know it would be there lest I accidentally step on it. Then she thought better and moved it under her chair, but her purse was already there and the bag poked into the aisle, so she placed it against the wall. Just then the waitstaff dimmed the lights and lit a fire in the wood-burning stove which was, naturally, against the wall right next to the bag. So after confirming with me that it would be O.K., she moved the bag under my chair, a sufficient distance from the flames yet near enough for her to keep an eye on it, positioning it perfectly so that when I rose to leave and bid them a pleasant evening, I tripped over it anyway. With the fire and the ghost of John Lennon and the good food and the ladies, I strode to the subway elated and satiated. Only the next day did I realize my bill, which in my winey haze I had thought excessive, was for a different table. I discerned this after realizing with a start that the polipetti entry on my receipt marked the consumption of two baby octopus salads. I’d probably return to Giorgione anway.
Giorgione
- 307 Spring St. (between Greenwich and Hudson Streets)
- (212) 352-2269
- Meal 16 of 52: fried artichokes ($10), cavatelli ($16), wine and tiramisu.