Restaurant review: Osteria Morini

Michael White seems to have the golden touch. Spiaggia, the famed Italian restaurant in Chicago frequented by the Obamas, earned four stars from the Chicago Tribune while he worked as its Chef de Cuisine. After White moved to New York in 2002, he earned three stars from the New York Times as the Executive Chef at three separate restaurants: Fiamma Osteria (closed last year), Alto, and Convivio. He is currently the executive chef of seven restaurants in the NYC area, including Marea, a widely-celebrated Italian seafood place on Central Park South, recently featured on this season of Top Chef.

You can see why I was very excited to try Osteria Morini, Michael White's new casual Italian restaurant in SoHo last month.

That's me looking at the menu. Everything sounded so delicious that I hemmed and hawed over what to order for a solid ten minutes. There were countless tempting first course options alone: assorted cured sliced meats, a selection of Italian cheeses, fritto bolognese (traditional street food of Bologna), ten homemade pastas, nine different hot and cold antipasti, and two kinds of baked polenta. But because I also spotted short ribs on the list of entrees, I decided NOT to get something super rich as a starter. So I chose soup.

There were actually two soups on the menu, but I chose a soup special which sounded promising: a parmesan broth with whole wheat spaetzle-like noodles and cured-meat "croutons." I know, why not just get pasta if I was going to get cheese soup, but soup always sounds light to me even if it is made with cream, noodles, and fried meat cubes. Sadly, while the cheese broth was quite tasty, the noodles were mealy and the "croutons" were made of head cheese - a jellied cold cut made from flesh from the head of a cow, calf, or pig - ICK!

At least I had ordered the sangiovese-braised short rib as my entree since short ribs are almost universally delicious and difficult to screw up. Except that wasn't very good either. The meat was displeasingly fatty and full of gristle and I ended up having to painstakingly pick it apart to find some edible pieces to pair with the potato puree and roasted root vegetables.

My sister ordered an above-average grilled pork chop with fried polenta, cipollini onions, and balsamic vinegar. It was much better than my short ribs, but not nearly as good as the stellar pork chops offered at Babbo (best pork chop ever) or the Little Owl (where they call their pork chop "the pork chop").

For dessert, we shared a few interesting scoops of gelato (including zabaglione and crumbled biscotti), and a superb vanilla bean panna cotta served in a mason jar and topped with a berry compote. It was among the best panna cottas I have ever had.

The service was slow and spotty, the dining room was cramped and loud, and I didn't recognize ANY of the wines by the glass (all Italian). Still, I'm not ready to write off Osteria Morini just yet, mostly because I blame myself for making bad menu selections (I was overwhelmed with all of the choices!). I would like to go back again to at least try a few of the pastas, but if those aren't mind-blowing, I see no reason to return. Michael White, perhaps you've spread yourself a little too thin?

*

Details:

218 Lafyette Street (between Broome and Spring)

New York City

(212) 965-8777

Dinner for two with a school night-appropriate amount of wine: ~$200