Last week, the elementary school report card came home, with a detailed description of how numeric grades are derived from a convoluted matrix of academic and behavioral criteria. I was wincing at the sterile mechanism by which students are evaluated when I saw a reassuring footnote below the boilerplate explaining that "teacher judgment may trump calculations." I took that to mean that even if a kid falls short of the technical benchmarks, the instructor can, shall we say, round up in the child's favor based on other intangibles.
What a perfect approach to apply to Brio Bistro Italiano. The second act of Whitfield's team Nathaniel Beaver and Gary Cormann—located in the former address of Wildwood Oak-Fired Kitchen—had so many missteps during a recent visit that, if we had to follow a strict grading system on a report card, Brio would be far from a star pupil. But, to belabor the report card analogy here, Brio demonstrated such endearing personality and so many intermittent flashes of creativity over two visits as to trump the more pedantic grading scale.
On our first trip, the server was painfully slow, lost our brick-oven short rib flatbread, brought olive oil and spices for dipping but initially forgot the ciabatta, and at one point brushed off a question about the menu by responding, "I'm not sure. I'm terrible with all this Italian."
And yet we liked our server, who was friendly and outgoing and set a pleasant tone for an easygoing evening. For better or worse, we gave up any ambitions of dinner and a movie and settled in for a leisurely repast of fresh, creative fare in which natural intelligence more than made up a few wrong answers.
Back to the grading metaphor, let's go ahead and slap a U-for-Unsatisfactory on the bison ravioli. Served in an intense pool of reduced demi-glace and Madeira wine, the chewy pockets of bland pulled meat resembled pan-seared Asian dumplings more than pillows of light Italian pasta.
Also in the needs-to-improve category: The lamb special was seared so long as to give the exterior a jerky-like texture, while the medallions—which we ordered medium—ranged from brazen pink to dour gray. Furthermore, the meal arrived like a study in beige, with a monochrome palette of salty quinoa—prepared like a creamy risotto—and roasted turnips. An accent of green would do a world of good for this dish, both in terms of balancing textures and adding visual interest.
The frutti di mare—chock-full of tender jumbo scallops, mussels, shrimp and calamari in a beer broth with potato-based cavatelli pasta—was a similarly monochromatic presentation. While the ingredients earned high marks for quality, the assembly of seafood and al dente twists of potato-based dough lacked enough liquid to marry the shellfish and pasta. (On a second visit, we saw a diner at a nearby table with the dish, which had much more broth and looked more appealing.)
But for someone who knows how to cook—and executive chef Cormann has demonstrated his skill at Whitfield's, while chef de cuisine Dustin Pritchitt cut his chops at Sunset Grill—these shortcomings are remediable, especially as the young restaurant settles into a rhythm. Where Brio shows real promise is in the playful creativity that enlivens the menu. That's something that can't be taught, and it's an attribute that makes Brio worth revisiting to see what whimsical gestures will emerge in the seasonally shifting repertoire.
The highlight of our meal—as promised by others who dined ahead of us—was the Barbabietola salad. On a nest of peppery arugula sat cold sweet hunks of roasted beets, balanced by sections of tangy grapefruit and chewy rustic gumdrops of candied fennel whose crystallized sugar coating counterbalanced the smooth cool textures of the beets and citrus. What made the salad stand out was the unexpected delivery of the goat cheese dressing, which arrived dramatically on the side in the form of a shivering puck of panna cotta—infinitely more amusing than a simple cream or crumble of cheese.
Pappardelle with three types of mushrooms layered earthy flavors with bright accents of arugula, in a creamy knot of wide noodles. Unlike the house-made ravioli, the fresh pappardelle from local Alfresco Pasta straddled perfectly the line between toothsome and soft, making a sultry vehicle for the delicate, velvety sauce of goat cheese and truffle oil.
Another imaginative success was the medley of tomato gnocchi and lobster in vermouth-butter sauce. Studded with chewy pancetta and laced with strings of fennel, the dish juxtaposed sweet lobster and salty bacon, doughy gnocchi and plump corn kernels, making each forkful an intriguing marriage of textures and flavors.
On the dessert menu, too, the Brio boys showed a flair for deconstruction, dismantling a classic carrot cake and reassembling it with a scoop of cream cheese gelato in lieu of standard-issue icing. The adventurous array of gelato flavors, including pomegranate, hazelnut and honey-roasted fig, from locally based Bravo Gelato showed a thoughtful approach to sourcing local products. The same could be said for the tomato-shaped candy balanced on the edge of the dessert cocktail. Made by a family friend of Beaver's, the sweet sidecar concluded the meal with an element of whimsy and polish. Like an apple for the teacher, that tiny red-and-green tomato made us want to round upward.
Brio opens daily at 4:30 p.m.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
