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Stella
Evan Deluty's Italian lights up the South End
BY ROBERT NADEAU
Stella
STELLA
617.247.7747
1525 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON
OPEN DAILY, 5:30-11 PM; LATE-NIGHT MENU AVAILABLE UNTIL 1:30 AM
AE, MC, Vi
FULL BAR
VALET PARKING $14
SIDEWALK-LEVEL ACCESS

I can’t claim to have sampled Evan Deluty’s Bistro 5, but once the appetizers hit the table at Torch, I knew Deluty was a kitchen star. His gift is vivid flavors; his weakness is erratic salting. Neither the gift nor the weakness translate entirely to the larger kitchen at Stella (which is actually supervised by executive chef Joe Cassinelli under Deluty’s ownership). What we have is a very workable, pretty much Italian South End restaurant.

Food starts with crusty bread and a pour of amazing olive oil, in a three-compartment dish with a white-bean purée and excellent home-cooked olives. For appetizers, you could pretty happily split one of the grilled "pizze" (I do like proper Italian grammar on menus). We had the gorgonzola, prosciutto, and arugula version ($15), and it came on a crust thinner than one layer of Syrian bread, bearing grill marks and stiff as a cracker, with the toppings well melted and melded, and a red-wine reduction (not clichéd balsamic vinegar) drizzled on top. You get a taste of ham and cheese, a bit of salad stuff — and enough for four people to have a couple pieces each.

Conventional appetizers are good but simple — this menu isn’t front-loaded like many. Grilled Italian sausage ($10) is a mild version, without fennel seeds, with some nice plum tomatoes and some very, very nice broccoli rabe. Mussels ($9) are done simply in a white-wine sauce (alcohol well cooked-off) with a little garlic and red pepper — a classic, but always in good taste.

The cherry-tomato salad ($11) is a clever attempt to get real sweetness into the classic Caprese salad — odd during tomato season, but a move that will pay off in the winter. A salad of baby arugula ($9) is worked up neatly with shredded endive, shaved Parmesan, and a dressing of lemon juice and peel with olive oil.

Of the pastas, tagliatelle with Bolognese sauce ($17; $9/half order) is excellent, wide ribbons of pasta with a truly meaty sauce. Here’s the old Deluty magic. The half-order would do fine for many light dinners, or as the intermediate course it would be in Italy.

One of the most successful main dishes is the simple, roasted half-chicken "cacciatore" ($18). Having the chicken roasted rather than braised assures a crisp crust, and the usual stew of wine, tomatoes, and mushrooms (here shiitake; the hunters have been hunting in China) makes a decent sauce. Some fluffy polenta rounds out the platter. Pork Milanese ($18) is a spin on good-old veal parmesan, with the pork cutlets pounded down nicely, and fresh buffalo mozzarella taking the place of the traditional parmesan and the usual domestic-cow mozzarella. Four large scallops under a tomato sauce make this one for hearty eaters.

Swordfish Siciliano ($23) is a fine slab of light, white swordfish served on crushed red potatoes and topped with thin "summer" asparagus. The Sicilian part is plenty of capers in the sauce. A piece of halibut ($25) on the same potatoes was not quite as sweet as the swordfish, but the garnish is a wonderful mélange of fresh corn-off-the-cob, sweet peas, oyster mushrooms, and spinach.

A special entrée of broiled trout ($22) was split and boned for easy eating, somewhat oversalted, but wonderfully pink and tasty, with a mix of summer squash, cherry tomato, and spinach.

The wine list is mostly Italian, long, and rather good. After the rich 2003 Dolchetto at Mare, I was eager to try another. Stella’s 2003 Dolchetto d’Alba Cortese "Trifolera" ($34) is a single-vineyard version of the tertiary grape of the Piedmont. It was not so rich, but rather elegant and light enough for the seafood as well as the tomato sauces and meat dishes. The restaurant does very well with coffee ($2.25) and the more-difficult decaf ($2.25) and cappuccino ($4).

Desserts stick to the Italian motif, except for my favorite, a chocolate mousse ($5) with a hint of cinnamon, perhaps, and the wonderful Italian touch of crumbled almond-biscotti (or perhaps amaretto cookies) on top. I also liked the seasonal fruit, peaches and cream ($5). There is a cheese platter ($10) and it wisely went simple, with just one cheese, a wonderfully ripe and smelly Taleggio, served with two figs and some salty crusts.

In the strict Italian mode, tiramisu ($5) is not much different than anywhere else, but the cannoli ($5) are among the largest and freshest. Service is excellent, but most tables are small, marking this as a non-family sort of restaurant. There is a large sidewalk-café scene with outdoor palms and umbrellas, as long as weather permits. Inside, most tables look like marble, but even with painted walls and lots of windows and a disco-salsa-techno soundtrack, it isn’t too loud. The wall art in the dining room is a suitably eponymous photo of star clusters.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.


Issue Date: September 16 - 22, 2005
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