Not Too Italian
Finezza's take on Italian food won't fool anyone whose grandparents came over from the old country
by Kay West
Finezza Italian Grille
5404 Harding Road. 356-9398
Hours: 5-10 p.m. Mon.-Thurs.; 5-11 p.m. Fri.-Sat.; 5-9 p.m. Sun.
Price range: $$$
On April Fool's Night, three other moms and their children joined me and my kids for dinner at Finezza Italian Grille—an experience best summed up by a small detail I noticed when our bill arrived. There at the bottom, after the subtotal of $177.01, but before the tax and automatic (for parties of six or more) gratuity of 18 percent, was this line: "Personal Dislike Discount: $8.99."
The $8.99 PDD was in reference to the tomato-brie bruschetta, which went back to the kitchen nearly uneaten, but not untouched. All four of the moms had picked up and studied the slices of warmed wheat bread scantily smeared with a garlic-brie spread. We puzzled over this curious interpretation, which had far more in common with an open-faced grilled sandwich than the classic Italian dish of toasted bread rounds rubbed with garlic and olive oil. We also warily poked at the accompanying bowl of chopped tomato and basil, so heavily laden with chopped garlic that a closer examination brought tears to the eye; a single bite would surely require days of social quarantine.
When our server came to clear the appetizer plates, she looked at the plate of so-called bruschetta and asked if we would like to have it boxed to take home. The three other moms looked at me; my children held their breath. I managed to suppress a sneer, but I couldn't hold back the personal dislike from my response: "Are you kidding? I never want to see that again!"
Had we clearly expressed our opinions on the rest of the meal, then the following also would have been tagged with the "personal dislike discount": fried calamari ($7.49), mussels puttanesca ($9.99), Caesar chicken salad ($10.99), salmon affogati ($14.99) and eggplant Parmesan ($11.49). That would have brought the pre-tax/tip tab down to $113.07, and would have made the experience a tad more palatable, at least to the pocketbook. Removing the $22 bottle of Chianti and the $5.50 glass of white wine would have put the total for food that at least one of us liked at $85.57, or $10.70 a person. Even this strikes me as pricey for what we got—a Shoney's-caliber meal, sprinkled with a handful of fresh basil in an attempt to convince us that what we were eating was Italian food.
Calling a restaurant Italian doesn't make it so; ask anyone of Italian descent who has had the utterly maddening experience of eating at Olive Garden. A couple of years ago, I read that the Olive Garden's television commercials—which portrayed "Italian" families flocking to the restaurant for dinner just like "mama makes"—so incensed a group of Italians that they threatened to sue on the grounds of false advertising.
I don't think you'll find many Italian immigrants dining at Finezza. I am certain that the two Italian American women who joined me that night will never go again. Both have grandparents who emigrated from Italy and came through Ellis Island, and both are amazing cooks. Anytime I visit a so-called Italian restaurant, I insist that at least one of them serve as Arbiter of Authenticity. Though their personal dislikes were quite clear on the night we dined, I e-mailed them the next day to get it in writing. Here are their replies.
From Barbara: "You know, I was going to write you anyway. I had a tummy-ache all night. I think everything was fried to death! The sauce was too sweet; maybe it was the bay leaf or the quality of the ingredients.... It was thick and not very subtle."
And from Judy, a slightly longer response under the subject heading, "Thazza Italian-ish": "Sauce: We have never called it 'gravy' in our family. No matter what you call it, it was terrible. It seemed to me like someone took some cans of already prepared tomato sauce and added green flecks of stuff—parsley, bay leaves and whatever else. It was too thick and heavy, and did not have a distinct tomato taste. It was cafeteria food. It was 'gravy.' Sauce is so easy to make. You sauté garlic and sweet onions in olive oil and add canned whole tomatoes that you pulse once or twice in the food processor. You add some fresh basil, a teaspoon of sugar and salt and pepper. That's it. I am not sure why that is so hard for everyone in town to figure out."
Sigh. Why in the world is it so hard for everyone to figure out? As Judy noted in her e-mail to me, the dishes at Finezza that used fresh tomatoes were good—aside from the aforementioned bruschetta disaster. There were lots of them on the caprese salad, a large bowl brimming with sliced Romas, about a dozen, we guessed. The ziti alla rustica also had fresh diced eggplant, medallions of Italian sausage and mozzarella, along with the chopped Romas. Thankfully, someone in the kitchen did not add the too sweet, too thick, too heavy marinara that was promised on the menu.
Unfortunately, the sauce—heavily and unpleasantly flavored by bay leaves that we had to pull out of our mouths if we didn't spy them first—did sully the eggplant Parmesan. The eggplant in this dish was sliced so thinly and breaded so heavily that no taste of the vegetable managed to escape from the mess it was mired in. The fried calamari—at least that's what it was purported to be—suffered the same flavor asphyxiation. We did like the fried artichoke hearts, strewn atop a pool of Alfredo sauce. Both the mussels and the salmon tasted so fishy that we pushed them aside; those dishes should have earned us a personal safety discount.
The thin crust on the pizza American floundered under the weight of a massive overdose of formaggio. We had better luck a couple nights later with the quite good pizza Basilico, with its fresh Roma tomatoes, pesto and goat cheese.
Though I am a fan of the small glasses used for wine at Finezza—similar to what one finds in genuine Italian pizzerias—I can't say the same for the bodaciously chintzy flatware, as lightweight as tin. Nor the oilcloth table covers, the cheap chairs or the crowded table spacing, which had me engaged in a shoving contest with the woman behind me all night long.
Finezza Italian Grille reminded me again—as I am often reminded after yet another disappointing visit to a so-called "Italian" restaurant—of my sister's explanation for why she likes Olive Garden. "Well, I like their breadsticks," she once told me. "I like the bottomless salad bowl, and I like that they're not too Italian." Finezza, I can also say with some authority, is "not too Italian." I would have to add that it's not too good, either. And that's too bad.
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