The fifth Westport eatery I visited was Tarantino Restaurant,
a favorite of mine for years. I still have fond memories of my last visit, when I attended a truffle dinner that even included truffle ice cream. For those who don’t know, Tarantino is a sibling of Applausi Osteria in Old Greenwich and Columbus Park Trattoria in Stamford. This trio of exceptional Italian restaurants is owned by the highly regarded Marchetti-Tarantino family.
Tarantino is managed by Angelo Capponi,
as hospitable a gentleman as one could ever want to meet. Capponi says he has been with the restaurant so long that he feels like a member of the family. “I’m at every wedding, every funeral, every christening…”
There’s an undeniable warmth to the restaurant,
as evidenced by this photograph taken in the bar area.
I shot the dining room when it was busy,
and at the end of the evening.
Soon after arriving, my wife and I were ensconced at a romantic window table. Who wouldn’t be ecstatic in the company of such a woman?
Moments later, Ann and I were hoisting glasses of Trebbiano Bianco or Montepulciano, which with a choice of appetizer and entrée formed the Restaurant Week dinner deal.
Great brick-oven Italian bread was served with superior extra virgin olive oil.
However, because we intended to try every dish from Tarantino’s Restaurant Week menu, we mostly resisted the bread. Good thing we did!
Tarantino’s appetizers were superb. We began with an absolutely killer escarole, sausage and bean soup topped with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.
The quality and generosity of the ingredients are what elevated this soup high above similar preparations at other Italian restaurants. The soup tasted homemade in the very best sense of the word.
Another big winner was soft polenta topped with sautéed wild mushrooms in a rich and luxurious Gorgonzola sauce. God was this dish great!
And our third appetizer was a sparklingly fresh arugula, endive and radicchio salad dressed with a subtle balsamic vinaigrette and topped with shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano.
We could hardly wait to try our entrées. Fettuccine noodles (handmade by Maria Marchetti) were tossed with shrimp, capers, black olives, cherry tomato, anchovy, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, resulting in an incredibly light and refreshing shrimp puttanesca.
The best tilapia you’ll find this side of a Philippine fish pond was sautéed with lemon, white wine and capers. The thick fillet was served with broccoli and perfectly roasted potato.
And how great were veal scaloppini sautéed in a Marsala wine sauce with roasted red pepper and mushroom!
These were all dishes that one might find in many Italian restaurants around Connecticut, but good luck finding them prepared with such first-rate ingredients and perfect technique. When I complimented Capponi on the stunning freshness of the food, he replied, “That is one of the characteristics of this restaurant. We make one dish at a time—from scratch. Most of our customers come here knowing what they want. They don’t even have to look at the menu.”
Dessert wasn’t part of Tarantino’s Restaurant Week menu (a similar approach has been successfully adopted by some of the New Haven and Hartford Restaurant Week participants), but we couldn’t resist a little lemon sorbet laced with limoncello liqueur.
Nor could we put the kibosh on some of the best espresso
and cappuccino around.
Restaurants show their true feelings about their customers not only through the warmth with which they handle them but through the quality of the food upon which they insist on serving them. The Marchetti-Tarantino family clearly values its customers as few other restaurants do. The best measure of Tarantino may be the smiles on the faces of its appreciative customers.
Tarantino Restaurant, 30 Railroad Place, Westport, 203-454-3188