In the film Big Night, two immigrant brothers own an Italian restaurant in an East Coast shore town. Their restaurant is small: Primo is in the kitchen, Secundo runs the front of the house and crunches the numbers, a task increasingly futile as their business teeters toward bankruptcy. The problem? A deadly combination of Primo’s unwavering commitment to culinary integrity and an indifference to same by their few customers.
The movie begins with a couple who have stumbled into Primo’s and ordered dinner. When the plates are placed before them, the woman, noting a sprig of fresh basil on her husband’s dish, exclaims, “Oh look, you got a leaf with yours!” Then she begins complaining about her risotto, wondering why it’s so “plain.” She insists on a side order of spaghetti. With meatballs. Secundo tries to deter her from the meatballs, at least. “Sometimes spaghetti likes to be alone,” he quips. Still she insists, and he reluctantly delivers the request to the kitchen. Primo boils over in a classic display of artistic temperament, waving his arms and throwing pots at the wall. “How can she want two starches?” he screams. “Who are these people in America? They are Philistines!”
Meanwhile, a flashy Italian-American joint up the street is packing them in. Owner Pascal, another immigrant chasing the American dream in the early ’50s, is succeeding by giving the Philistines just want they want: cheap wine, white bread, and overflowing bowls of spaghetti and meatballs. Watching the hustle and bustle, Primo remarks disgustedly, “The man should be in prison for the food he is serving.”
After a particularly humiliating meeting with the banker, Secundo approaches Primo and proposes at least taking risotto off the menu, telling him it costs too much and no one knows what it is. Primo refuses. “Give the people time. They will learn.”
I’d like to think Primo and Secundo’s restaurant would be wildly popular here in Nashville, but I’m not so sure. Particularly when I see the lines outside the doors of such monuments to mediocrity as Olive Garden, which bait and hook their customers with dishes that offer not just two but three starches on the same plate. Why strive for quality when you can overwhelm with quantity? As one of the Olive Garden’s most dedicated fans told me when I questioned her choice, “I like it because it’s not too Italian.” Well, she’s got that right.
If you prefer Italian food that’s not too Italian, you’re one of the thousands of Nashvillians who have been avoiding Taste of Italy, the Italian market/take-out store. Ever since opening a year ago, Carlo and Marie Giordano have been unwavering in their commitment to quality, offering the very best imported meats and cheeses, mouthwatering roasted vegetables, and exquisite salads and pastas. Tucked into the Paddock Place strip center on White Bridge Road, Taste of Italy straddles a culinary limboland between tony Belle Meade and blue collar Charlotte Pike. Perhaps that explains why, despite a near-fanatical following by a small group of Italian-Americans and foodies, the Giordanos remain mostly undiscovered by the population at large.
But if you are one of the many who routinely ask me where to find genuine Italian food in this town, let me steer you to 73 White Bridge Road, where Carlo and Marie have recently begun serving dinner by reservation only to parties of six or more. During business hours, a casual lunch is served on the six or so tables inside. In the evening, the lights go down, white linens cover the tables, heavy china and silver are set, Italian opera is on the sound system and Alex Giordano will uncork and pour the wine you bring. In the kitchen, Carlo and helpers prepare a four-course repast.
There are three prix fixe options—$29, $39, or $49 per person. Each of these offers one appetizer, two choices of first course, two of second and a dessert. (You must make your choices two days in advance when you reserve.)
Recently, to atone for a particularly horrible dining experience inflicted on six of my closest and most discerning friends, I took the same party to Taste of Italy for dinner. We began with orange scampi fritters—prawns lightly coated in fresh bread crumbs and sautéed in butter, with a burst of orange zest. They were tasty, but it was the eggplant caponata that had us sounding like Meg Ryan in the infamous scene fromWhen Harry Met Sally. The thinnest slices of marinated, roasted eggplant were rolled around roasted red peppers, then drizzled with fruity olive oil and served room-temperature. I could see the wheels turning in every head and knew it wouldn’t be long before my friends were attempting to duplicate the dish in their own kitchens.
Next, we sampled plates of spaghetti with a garlicky fresh tomato sauce fired up with minced red chili peppers. The triumph of this particular spaghetti was that the pasta—cooked perfectly al dente—was not overwhelmed by the sauce but complemented by it. In Italy, freshly made pasta isn’t relegated to a supporting role as it is here; often it is tossed with nothing more than olive oil and a sprinkle of fresh herbs. I thought of Primo as I savored the creamy risotto with white truffle oil and porcini mushrooms, allowing it to linger on my tongue before slipping down my throat. Some at the table found it salty, but it didn’t bother me in the least.
The pork loin roast was excellent, moist and aromatic with fresh herbs and a delicate white wine sauce. The melt-in-your-mouth sea bass, poached en papillote with fresh tomatoes, capers, and black olives, was absolutely sublime and provoked another round of moaning, groaning foodgasms.
We settled into afterglow with Taste of Italy’s incomparable tiramisu and the delightful glazed peach with zabaglione, along with cups of strong espresso and frothy cappuccino.
Toward the end of Big Night, during the climactic banquet scene, Primo has lured Ann, the American object of his shy affection, into the kitchen to explain his passion for food. He takes a morsel of something directly from the pan and places it in her mouth. She closes her eyes and murmurs simply, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” He smiles and says, “To eat good food is to be close to God.”
There is little more heavenly than an evening of good food, good wine, and good friends. You just have to know where to find it.
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