Washington, D.C., October 10, 2007 - The bar is bigger and the walls are darker -- and happy hour is, well, happier -- at the recently reopened Spezie (1736 L St. NW; 202-467-0777). The restaurant emerged from a summer-long break last month with a fresh look in its dining room and a new face in its kitchen: Cesare Lanfranconi, the former top toque at Ristorante Tosca, who rewrote 80 percent of Spezie's menu.
Fans of the old place can still find porcini ravioli with pistachio cream sauce. "I wanted to honor some tradition," Lanfranconi says. But his fall menu welcomes such new arrivals as red-wine-braised octopus, lamb carpaccio with salsa verde, Tuscan-style grilled steak, and roasted squab with cauliflower gratin and a wash of vin santo sauce.
No sooner do the doors open than we squeeze in for lunch (the place is hopping), where hot triangles of smoked mozzarella -- breaded, fried and served with velvety roasted peppers -- find us reconsidering our distaste for cheese sticks. Branzino, striped from the grill and deboned at the table, makes a nice impression, too. The meaty fish is handsomely staged with verdant spinach and roseate whipped potatoes (their tint and tang come from tomato in the puree).
Not just the look and the tastes are different at Spezie. The 39-year-old chef, who retains a partnership position at Tosca, is an altered picture, too. Thanks to a diet free of wine, bread and pasta and rich with fruits and vegetables, Lanfranconi says, he managed to lose 15 of his 275 pounds in the three weeks leading to the Spezie relaunch. The motivation? "I want to be in shape to go skiing," shares the chef, who says he no longer eats after 10 p.m. and hopes to drop an additional 20 pounds.
He'll have to stay away from Spezie's new bar menu (served weekdays from 2:30 to 6 p.m.), which embraces such forbidden fare as deep-fried seafood, panini and panzarotti (fried "pizza pockets" stuffed with ricotta and Italian cold cuts). Owner Enzo Livia says he extended the restaurant's hours and offerings in part to give customers an alternative spot for business meetings.
Because in Washington any meeting might include war talk, he calls the neutral and cozy bar space the "Green Zone."
Lunch entrees, $18-$25; dinner entrees, $27-$35. |
