Il Mulino

I'm relatively comfortable being the odd man out at a table. Long years playing the devil's advocate with my European friends has made sure of that. It's not that I disdain people's disagreements - if friends I respect think I'm wrong, that's a clear signal that I should think again. Once I do that though, I've never been too worried about being alone. A lot of people I admire have been disagreed with.

I preface this snapshot with those rather too philosophical musings because Il Mulino has one of the most sterling reputations in New York. The bible of most amateur New York restaurant mavens, Zagat's, rates it at a stratospheric 27, raving about Il Mulino's "ambrosial" food. Critic after critic has kept the restaurant at the top of diners' lists. We were even joined at lunch, when I visited, by former New York Stock Exchange chairman Dick Grasso - if $150 million can't buy you taste, then I'm not sure what can. So when I found the food at Il Mulino barely average, I followed my instincts in having a long hard think about the restaurant in the last day or so - enough people of sufficient experience and intelligence disagreed to give me pause. But I trust my palate and my judgment. Based on those things, my verdict is clear- the food at Il Mulino is not worthy of a famous restaurant. It not only fails the test of value, but my baseline test of competence - given the same ingredients, can I do better at home? For Il Mulino, the answer is a shocking but clear "yes".

Il Mulino is famed for the antipasta that precede the meal, and even your menu. Once we sat down, the various bits of Italian mezze began to arrive, and they certainly looked like they ought to be good - a whole parmesan was brought to the table to be divided en place, plates of salami, fried zucchini, bread toasted in olive oil, bruschetta topped with fresh tomato sauce. But each item prophesied disaster, though I didn't want to believe it at the time. The meat was unaccountably tasteless - as if there wasn't any fat at all, though you could see the mocking cubes of lard right there. The thin slivers of shaved fried zucchini were so oil-logged that they were almost inedible. The bruschetta was inoffensive, if one ignored the mediocre bread, the parmesan could have been better (and it's not like one has to go far in New York to buy better parmesan), and most shocking of all, it was entirely clear that the crostini had been made the night before. If it had been any less obvious, I wouldn't have believed it - but there was no mistaking the soft crumble of left-over toast that day.

Things didn't get any better when the maitre d' arrived to take our orders. I'm not of the school that believes that chefs should accomodate the diner - if you want to have a restaurant where there aren't any menus, and the diner is entirely at the mercy of what's available and fresh, that's fine. Just tell me how much it costs, and I'll make a judgment about the quality of the chef at the helm. Similarly, I have no problem with specials - even the best restaurant has food it needs to get rid of occasionally, and it is true that sometimes the kitchen is privy to a shipment of something particularly delicious but in short supply. But in either case, I have to know how much it costs - I can't tolerate restaurants that force you to guess what they're going to charge. Il Mulino is one of the worst offenders on this score I've ever seen, because while there is a menu, many of the most putatively interesting dishes are counted out on the mysteriously pudgy fingers of the staff - "I can make for you", our waiter said, "this, and that, and maybe this, perhaps, and this - and I forgot, there was also the other". As for what it cost - who knows? Though the fact that the specials were at least 50% more expensive than the menu items became apparent from the bill of over $80 a person at the end. And that, to me, signifies a lack of respect for the customer, and a failure of the restaurant's duty as a servant rather than master.

When my plate of fried zucchini flowers arrived, stuffed with mozzarella and topped with a pungent sauce of anchovy and capers, I had a moment of hope. These, I thought, couldn't help but be good. And yet, Il Mulino failed me again. The flowers, so delicous golden and crisp, had gone brown and soggy. As for the excellent cheese tucked inside the delicate vegetable, that was entirely overwhelmed by an overpowering sauce. It's not that I dislike anchovy sauce - I like it very much indeed. But there's well done anchovy sauce, and its less accomplished cousin. And this, I'm afraid, was the black sheep of that particular culinary family, unbalanced, too salty, too strong. Given the kitchen's limitations, that dish would have been so much better with a simpler sauce of fresh tomatoes and the same capers, layered underneath the flowers. I don't know why they went with this recipe instead, aside from the carelessness borne of resting on one's laurels.

I ordered an octopus salad as my main course, largely because octopus is one of my favorite types of seafood, especially at the sushi table - there, the Japanese wash it in salt to remove its brine, pound it (traditionally) with daikon radish to make it easier to eat, and then boil it briefly to cook and colour it. Il Mulino had necessarily followed much the same method in making its salad of baby octopus, scallions, olive oil, and lemon - and yet, the kitchen had somehow made a mess of it. There was too much sauce, and it tasted of too little - salad ought to be annointed rather than doused in dressing that tastes of something other than water and onion. The octopus was desperately overcooked - like small tubes of red tinged rubber, while the 1980's style presentation in a sheath of Bibb lettuce was an unnecessarily outdated pastiche of a second rate brunch shrimp cocktail. Even the dubious appeal of nostalgia was muted by the frayed edges of the leaf - was there really not a piece of fresh lettuce to line my bowl with? Or was I not as important to them as Mr. Grasso?

Dessert was a muted affair at our table, stuffed as we were with portions that verged,and crossed over, into the vulgar. Unwilling to leave without a sweet end, though, our party shared a predictable, though good, tiramisu - strong in coffee and chocolate, layered with a creamy zabione - and also ordered some fresh strawberries and a bowl of yet more of the meringue-like sauce. As we staggered outside, a disconcerting thought crossed my mind - is it wrong to be so annoyed at such a luxurious meal? How can I justify such damning criticism of an admittedly overindulgent bachanal, provided not my expense but out of my employer's pocket - isn't that kind of childish grousing the very height of greed?

Well, there is some of that, I admit. But the real height of greed is charging what Il Mulino does for poorly executed and over-hyped food in an atmosphere that suggests that the customer ought to be grateful for the privilege of dining there. I'll admit that the pasta other people ordered seemed competent, though I can't comment definitively from the small tastes I took. Maybe one shouldn't expect too much else of Il Mulino, an avowedly old style Italian-American restaurant. But I don't buy that argument - for the astronomic prices they charge, and the fawning praise they receive, Il Mulino deserves the strictest and most impartial scrutiny. It should deliver strong and winning dishes across the menu - and should continue that strength even into its amuses bouches and service. Sadly, Il Mulino does none of those things - preferring instead to dazzle the apparently awestruck with empty show. I'll admit that my impressions are from only one visit - that's why I don't term this article a review, but a snapshot - nonetheless, it's clear to me that the door is open for a new king of Manhattan italian cookery. Babbo, which I hope to visit soon, may well be the answer. I certainly hope it is.