The Good at Villa d’Este Is Enough to Overshadow the Pretense

Time, tides and demands of the holiday season precluded a second visit to Villa d’Este, an unfortunate situation given the attractions of this new Del Mar eatery.

The restaurant rather presumptuously takes its name from the historic grand hotel on the shores of Lake Como, the picturesque watering spot north of Milan that has catered to the very well-heeled for a couple of centuries. Besides the name, about all that the Italian Villa d’Este and the Del Mar restaurant have in common is a view of the water, which in the local case amounts to a panorama of Los Penasquitos Lagoon that is visible only from the front, and least comfortable, dining room.

But pretense aside, there are numerous good things about this place, and most of them are edible. In keeping with what seems to be an unstoppable local trend, the menu takes a serious view of Italian cuisine, in this case the more soigne cooking of the North, and the kitchen seems able to keep pace with what is certainly an ambitious list of primi piatti (appetizers), pastas and entrees. It does less well with desserts, but if one has taken full advantage of the main sections of the menu, this one weakness will not seem terribly important. As an added bonus, the wine list is exceptionally well-chosen, with a great number of fine Italian vintages appropriate to the cooking.

Service Relatively Formal

Villa d’Este offers three rooms, a bar and patio dining during clement weather; although all of them feature roses and candlelight, the two small, back rooms are infinitely the more comfortable at the moment. Specify a table in one of these if making a reservation. The service in every room presumably is the same, which is to say concerned, informed, relatively formal and altogether reassuring in these days of off-hand, familiar service.

As is standard in Italy and as is becoming common practice here, the restaurant offers a selection of the day’s antipasti served from a buffet table tucked away in a corner of one of the dining rooms. These displays sometimes feature a dozen or more savory items, and one receives a tiny taste of most. On the visit in question, Villa d’Este’s board offered but five dishes, with the compensation that they not only were served in quantity but were quite well-prepared.

At its least prepossessing, the antipasto plate included strips of grilled zucchini, a typically featured item that in this case would have benefited from a good soaking in olive oil, a finishing touch that turns simple zucchini into something more complex and desirable. But the plate also included fat wedges of cantaloupe wrapped in fine, tangy prosciutto ham; artichoke hearts marinated in a mixture that incorporated a teasing hint of fresh lemon juice, and savory “sandwiches” of creamy mozzarella di buffala (a buttery cheese churned from the milk of water buffalo) pressed between tomato slices garnished with fresh basil.

The star of this plate was a mound of veal salad, an unusual mixture of shredded roast veal seasoned with slivered onion, chopped parsley and an almost ephemeral hint of vinegar. This was an extremely pleasing offering.

Impressive List of Pastas

According to current usage, the menu continues with an impressive list of pastas that allows guests to make a choice that not only will determine the overall nature of the meal, but also its cost. A pair of guests who each order pasta as a main course will find the bill considerably smaller than the pair that splits a dish of pasta and then follows it, in the pleasantly indulgent Italian fashion, with entrees.

Should the latter course be followed, a pasta that equally well precedes meat, poultry and seafood dishes is the paglia e fieno ai porcini , a suave and subtle jumble of fresh, narrow spinach and egg noodles (extra-narrow fettuccine, to be precise) tossed with musky, perfumed forest mushrooms and a bit of Parmesan cheese. The flavors of this dish are simple but rich; it is a refined and rather austerely elegant dish.

The paglia e fieno was the only pasta sampled, but among promising-sounding offerings are the spaghetti in fresh tomato, garlic and basil sauce; the fettuccine Villa d’Este, which incorporates peas, artichoke hearts and mushrooms in a basic tomato sauce, and the apparently sumptuous cannelloni Bolognese. This last dish consists of crepes stuffed with minced beef, veal, ham, mushrooms and spinach, baked under twin coverlets of cream and meat sauces; if this sounds extravagant, consider that Bologna often is called “Bologna la grassa ,” or “Bologna the fat,” because of its insistence on rich food.

The entree lists run to surprising length, covering all bases, as it were, among meats and seafoods finished both with smooth butter and wine sauces, and the more robust preparations seasoned with garlic, tomato and herbs. Even beef, which in Italian restaurants usually takes a back seat to veal, is offered in numerous guises, most interestingly the tenderloin medallions with porcini mushrooms and the filetto alla pizzaiola , the Neapolitan favorite that calls for a briefly cooked sauce of fresh tomato strongly seasoned with much basil, oregano and garlic.

Among the seafoods, the list offers the typical shrimp in garlic butter, the luxurious lobster alla diabola (cooked in a spicy tomato sauce, and not always available), grilled halibut and salmon, and caciucco , a Mediterranean stew of fin and shellfish that is cousin to the better known bouillabaisse and cioppino . The humble chicken turns up masked with several elegant stuffings and sauces, as does veal, which can be had in styles ranging from the simple Milanese breaded chop ( costoletta alla Milanese ), to alla zingara (veal scallops “Gypsy Style,” with sauteed red and yellow peppers in cream sauce), scaloppine Villa d’Este (white wine, peas and artichoke hearts) and saltimbocca fiorentina , or veal in white wine sauce piled atop a bed of creamed spinach.

The two entrees sampled were both quite pleasing. A trio of grilled lamb chops seasoned with thyme and garlic were exceptional not only for the fine, teasing restraint of the flavoring, but also for the buttery quality of the meat. The costoletta vecchiamodena , or veal chop stuffed with prosciutto and finished with a truffled white wine sauce, was equally refined; visually impressive thanks to its height and girth, this tender, lovely chop also responded well to its two main flavorings. Both plates included blossom-shaped arrangements of sauteed baby vegetables, as well as small servings of sliced potatoes baked in cream, a preparation that seemed an extremely close relation to the gratin dauphinoise of Alpine France.

As mentioned earlier, the homemade desserts do not rank as this restaurant’s strong suit. The tray recently included a grape and strawberry tart that looked somewhat overblown, cloud-like billows of caramel-drenched meringue swimming in custard sauce (the dessert the French call “ iles flotants ,” and which those of our forebears who made this once-common sweet called “floating island”), and a discouraged-looking loaf that the management called “ tirami su ,” but which had none of the appearance of the classic Roman mix of cake and whipped mascarpone cheese. The Swiss chocolate cake sampled was dry and unconvincing in its flavors.

VILLA D’ESTE

2282 Carmel Valley Road, Del Mar

259-2006

Lunch served Monday through Friday, dinner seven nights.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, $50 to $110.