Erica De Mane

Chianti at Morandi.

If you can handle big noise, Tuscany-by-way-of-Disneyland décor (featuring walls of Chianti basket bottles that they serve carafe wines in), and a rambunctious (and very tall) crowd (including the designer Betsey Johnson on my last visit, but she’s not so tall), Morandi, Keith McNally’s year-old restaurant in the West Village, is worth a trip, for its fresh, uncomplicated Italian cooking, with some very diet-friendly small dishes scattered throughout the menu. This is a big improvement on the establishment that formerly occupied the address, an always empty, accept for the owner and a few of his buddies, Russian-run “Italian” cafe. Whatever life was lurking in that creepy place was all under the surface. At Morandi, on the other hand, everything is on the table.

My latest meal there was just about perfect. I started with an escarole and anchovy salad, which turned out to be a kind of lightened-up Caesar, without cheese but tossed with bits of hard-cooked egg yolk. Really delicious and lemony. Than I ordered another appetizer, a beautiful little pile of seafood fritto misto (God, I love fried fish, and a little bit never hurt any diet), which included whole sardines, calamari, and big shrimp with their crunchy delicious heads, all very lightly and crisply fried, with almost no greasiness. I chose a house wine, a gently acidic rosato from Puglia. I was most happy with this lovely little meal.

Another great diet-friendly small dish you might want to try is grilled sardines with fennel and grilled orange, which was fresh and delicate. I liked the antipasto misto, with no surprises—roasted peppers, artichokes, eggplant, and mozzarella, all top-quality stuff. The fried green olives stuffed with sausage, something I first sampled in Rome years back, is really special (how do they get the sausage in there?). There’s a spunky grilled squid salad with roasted peppers, a grilled radicchio with scamorza plate, octopus with celery and black olives, a moist carpaccio with an intense little olive oil maionese, and a dish I often make at home, pumpkin marinated with pine nuts and raisins. Theirs is as good as mine, and mine is really good. These are all small dishes.

The menu goes forth with pastas and main courses, and the prices rise, sometimes unreasonably, I feel ($36 for a pork chop?), but from a dieter’s point of view, two antipasto-type dishes—maybe one salad and then a protein—is the best way to go. I also love their pomidoro e finocchio soup. That followed by the grilled sardines was an excellent little meal I sampled on an earlier visit.

I avoided the place for a long time, assuming the scene would annoy me. But the crowds have died down a bit. It’s now possible to just walk in and get a table at dinner (although you should go early, around sevenish). It’s still a scene, but, as it turns out, it’s a fun one. And there’s something so goofy about all the prefab decor that it puts me in a lighthearted mood (not always easy these days). The waiters are giggly but well rehearsed, the management doesn’t seem too uptight, and, best of all, the food is good. So give your kitchen a break, and take your diet out to dinner.

Morandi
211 Waverly Place (at Charles Street)
New York, N.Y.
(212) 627-7575