Notti Bianche, Washington, D.C.

A couple of weeks ago, a small group of us headed out to Sunday dinner, and went to the George Washington University Inn on the street behind me to see if their restaurant, Nectar, had reopened after remodeling. Turns out it's open again, but it's now known as Notti Bianche, an Italian-style trattoria. I was kind of amused by the name.....notti bianche is, literally, "white nights" in Italian, but it's also an idiomatic expression in Italy meaning "sleepless nights." LOL

The young chef from Dish at the River Inn down the street is also overseeing this new restaurant. When we arrived, the main dining room was filled with a group of Girl Scouts who were staying at the hotel, so we got the manager to seat us out on the patio for a little more quiet. We also let the manager pick our menu for the evening, and it turned out to be a nice adventure. Here's his picture:



We started with the roasted house olives. They took a mixture of four or five different green and ripe Italian olives, marinated them in olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, and fresh oregano, then roasted them in the oven and served them warm at the table. Hot, juicy olives are really good! We also got a basket of toasted Italian breads and foccacia, and the obligatory plate of olive oil and roasted garlic was poured up for dipping the bread. With the olives, he brought us the first of the evening's wines, and I thought it interesting that all of the wines he brought were reds. We started with a 2002 Capestrano Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. Now, abruzzos are notorious for being pleasant, innocuous little wines, but this one was actually very flavorful and had enough substance and acidity to stand up to the heavy garlic of the olives. There was a nice blackberry touch to the taste and it was a bit spicy for a typical abruzzo.

Next we had chilled tomato soup with tiny poached shrimp, toasted pinoli, and a basil mascarpone. This was a really interesting soup. The base soup was a rough puree of tomatoes and cucumber with multiple other vegetable flavors, and it seemed to have been brightened a bit with a shot of red wine vinegar. The soup was ladled into a soup plate, and then a mixture of the shrimp, quartered cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, and fresh shredded basil leaves were mounded in the center, and the mascarpone cheese sauce was drizzled all over the top of the presentation. It was very pretty, and there was enough shrimp and cheese almost to make it qualify as a fish course.

Our second course was a fava bean salad with a glass of 2003 Mark West Pinot Noir (no, no chianti!). The salad was an interesting construction. On the plate was a mixture of fava beans and pureed fava beans with a hint of mint chiffonade, topped with a thin, crispy, crepe-sized, peccorino romano cracker. On top of the cracker was a mix of bitter salad greens with crispy slivvers of fried pancetta ham dressed in a light lemony vinaigrette. A large thin slice of pecorino cheese rested over the greens, and another cracker crowned the entire oeuvre. It was a nice mixture of tastes and textures. The wine had a nice richness to it with hints of strawberry tastes and a touch of oakiness. It wasn't bad for a Central Coast wine.

We all got separate entrees. One dish was a cannelloni stuffed with poached chicken and sweet Italian sausage and served on a bed of braised baby spinach and shallots, then sauced with a veal stock and chianti reduction and garnished with frizzled sage leaves. Another was a half grilled Tuscan chicken served with a vegetable fricassee and creamy polenta. Both of the chicken dishes came with a glass of 2003 Morgante Nero d'Avola, which I didn't get a chance to taste.

My entree was a skillet-braised monkfish with Sardinian couscous. There were a couple of things I didn't like about the presentation, but when I read the menu after dinner, I saw that those things were specifically explained and set out, so I guess I have to accept them as they were, since we let the manager select the menu without any guidance or restrictions. What I didn't like about the fish presentation was that it was served on the bone, "steak style." It gave it a novel look, but I didn't like having to hack around the big fish bones. The plate was also surrounded by a semi-circle of thin anchovy crackers, and I hate anchovies, so I didn't eat more than a bite of the crackers. The fish itself, though, was very flavorful. Monkfish is one of those fish that strongly takes on the flavors and character of the foods cooked with it, and this dish had been braised with procscuitto ham, anchovies (ick, more anchovy, but not too much), fennel, olives, celery, garlic, Italian parsley, capers, and tomatoes in a shellfish stock. The couscous was nice, though I don't know what made it "Sardinian." My wine was a 2002 Cantele Primitivo-Puglia. It was a medium-weight, slightly peppery wine that was adequate, but didn't really stand up to the complex, strong flavors of the stewed vegetables.

We were too full for dessert, so we segued into coffee and cognac. The manager brought us snifters of a very nice Pierre Ferrano Amber Grand Cru.

Notti Bianchi was a very enjoyable dining experience, and we didn't experience any sleeplessness at all! The prices were surprisingly moderate for the quality of food and service, and we all agreed that it's a place we should put on our regular restaurant rotation.