Quick confession? We’d never been to eat at Southside-ish/maybe Midtown (?) Italian joint Piccolino until the other night. Yeah, yeah, yeah—we’ve heard it all before from literally everyone: “It’s incredible, Fork!” or, “Fork, I don’t think I’m overselling it when I say it’s the greatest thing to happen to anyone in the history of humans on Earth!” or, like, “WHY YOU NO SAUCE ON PASTA BEFORE NOW, FORK?!?!?!”
Obviously we’re being absurd here for the point of the yuks, but here’s the thing—it’s not that far off. For years now, we’ve seen Piccolino snag the top spot in the Best of Santa Fe’s “Best Italian” category, and we’ve heard over-the-top, lovey-dovey talk from transplants who hail from Jersey to whatever California city for years about the amazingness. And now that we’ve eaten there, we feel comfortable in saying that it’s a very good Italian restaurant, but y’all need to chill.
First of all? Hats off to the Tarango and Jimenez families who own Piccolino for the recent-ish renovation of their Agua Fría biz. Like we said, we hadn’t eaten there until recently, but we’d for sure been inside before, and there are many more tables now and a more contempo-cool look and they kept the popular drive-thru that people love so much.
That still doesn’t answer why we took so long to eat there, but we do actually have a reason that we’ll highlight in an analogy. You know when some movie comes out and everyone you ever met makes it sound like the single greatest achievement in cinema, but then you go and it’s actually, like, Xanadu? OK, so maybe it’s not Xanadu, but the point remains that same, and that point is that people tend to overhype things they like, and it does a disservice to anyone interested in whatever the thing is. You don’t go in guns blazing, man, you go in like, “Oh, I dunno, it’s pretty good, I liked it,” and let people decide for themselves, because—and this is true—nothing will ever live up to the hyperbolic levels of adoration this city has heaped upon some of its restaurants, and y’all (clap) need (clap) to (clap) chill (clap).
The evening at Piccolino began quickly and nicely and did we already say quickly? A nice young host told us it would be 15 minutes, but it was more like 15 seconds. Did we love that weird two-top we got right next to some dude and all wedged against a wall designed to divide the room? It wasn’t our favorite, but it was still a quick seating, so why complain about a nice surprise? The next surprise? Piccolino has a huge menu with crazy affordable prices. For example, the veal sub-menu—from which we wouldn’t eat, honestly, but we’re just telling you about it—contains a number of dishes that run $23.99-$24.99, and even the night’s filet mignon special only clocked in at $34.99.
Still, we’d decided with our date that night to sample from the classics, since a good rule of thumb when evaluating a restaurant is how well it does with its tried and true offerings. That meant chicken parmigiana for our date ($19.99) and eggplant parmigiana for your old pal The Fork ($15.99, and we ordered it because it did not come with pasta and we can’t always eat a big old thing of pasta).
The verdict? Both dishes were quite good. We know that’s kind of a boring sentence, but that’s the truth—they were both very good. The chicken, for example, was breaded and crispy and smothered in that marinara. The eggplant was similar. What do you want from us? It was marinara-smothered chicken and eggplant. It was tasty. OK, look, we can tell you this thing we know about how eggplant suffers in lesser hands and can be so bitter if you don’t prep it or soak it right before you implement it in a dish. Piccolino’s was absolutely non-bitter, and actually seasoned to a borderline perfect taste that wasn’t over-salted. Breaded chicken is almost always good, though, so make of that what you will. We ended the night with a disappointing slice of lemon meringue pie that tasted like the disappearing ghost of citrus, but that’s kind of on us for not just getting something with chocolate, probably.
Make no mistake, dear readers, in our understanding of how comfort food works, particularly Italian food. We get that for some folks it conjures the same feeling that a big ol’ smothered enchilada with a fried egg conjures within us, The Fork. But point blank, are we ever going to return to Piccolino? Maybe. We might. It’s a very good restaurant, but y’all oversold it. And that’s a rather interesting thought when it comes to sharing restaurant info, isn’t it? There tends to be this binary thought process at work with civilians who don’t have a newsletter platform in which to talk shit and make yuks. We almost never hear, “It was pretty good,” but we do hear a lot of other takes on restaurants that generally land between “It was absolute garbage,” and “Such-and-such place crafted the single finest meal I’ve ever encountered.” We realize we work for a paper that just helped the citizenry crown about a billion things the best things in their field(s), but we think that it’s ultimately silly to either love or hate something.
Take Piccolino, for example. The marinara was not particularly flavorful for our first few bites, but the deeper we got into our cheesy, saucy eggplant dish, the more it unveiled itself. This made us wonder if the eggplant itself might be doing some heavy lifting flavor-wise, but had we not delved further or simply allowed our first impression to be our everything, we might never have eaten almost all of it before feeling so full we had to go home and lie down. Similarly, Piccolino could stand to offer a slice of pie that was at least better in taste than a Marie Callendar’s and…actually, MC is pretty dope and we think Piccolino might need to hear that its pie is only OK at best—but that isn’t enough to label the experience the best or the worst. We ask you, dear readers, to consider the following: What the fuck else are we doing with our lives if not tasting and trying and debating and loving and hating? Why we no nuance no more? Can’t something be only OK? Pretty good? Fine that one time, but we wished it was better? Piccolino is a very good restaurant, for sure, and we maybe should have eaten there sooner. But thanks to an army of dorks who need to list out some kind of foodie resume (ugggggggggh) when they qualify some restaurant like they’re the only ones who ever tasted anything before, it couldn’t be what y’all wanted it to be for us. So….uhhh….word.
Say Xanadu like Frank Black sings “cariboooouuuu,” and you’re in for a good time.
Also
- Word on the street is that downtown brunchy-but-more spot Café Catron (formerly New York Deli or, if you’re old, Bagelmania) has upped its service to seven days a week. That’s every damn day. Oh, and they do dinner now Thursday-Saturday, so that’s also a thing. We like that spot OK, and so can you. If we’re honest, we see it more as a brekkie thing, but if/when we get a chance to snag a dinner, we’ll tell you alllllll about it.
- Who is this mysterious Austin transplant chef Jeff, and why is he offering free tasting menu events in Santa Fe? Not a complaint, more like a there’s-no-free-lunch thought. What we know is this: Homeboy’s name is Jeff Mills, he came here recently from Texas because his wife’s mom lives here and he’s trying to get into the local food game. That’s cool. It’s kind of like catering, but who knows what he’ll…cook up (nailed it). For now, follow him on Facebook if you like, because he seems to be posting there quite a bit.
- We’ve made no secret of our pupusa love, and we’re pumped to have recently learned about a spot called Pupuseria Chalateca located at 1242 Siler Road. We haven’t been over there yet, but we could always use more pupusas—and their social media page has some taco photos that look, frankly, insane. Check it out by clicking here.
- We wanted to give a quick shout-out to artisan pizza joint Tender Fire Kitchen, because we caught them out there during that Santa Fe Summer Walk on Canyon Road last week, and though we didn’t get pizza because we’re not waiting in a line ever again, we couldn’t help but smell the goodness while we overheard about 80 people all like, “Damn, this pizza is FOR REAL!”
Mentioning pizza got us thinking about the Noid. What a jerk. You know what they say: Avoid talking to that particular guy.
Also
- As if dropping more than 50 standards last month wasn’t concerning enough, the FDA will now apparently change what can legally be counted as orange juice. This means way less fruit, way more water and other weird shit. Boo! This could also affect jam makers, too, who might no longer need to include specific percentages of actual fruit in their products. Jesus, it’s hard to not expatriate and head to…we dunno, Canada. We could meet the Degrassi kids!
- New Mexico is not on the list of 21 states that faced a cookie recall from Target because there was reportedly literal wood in those cookies, but we figured folks should know in case they’re reading this from Delaware, Illinois or any of the others listed in this story from Delish-dot-com. Y’heard? Word.
- Lastly in not-just-local news this week, we ask you to remember a time we used to include, like, 65 news items in The Fork instead of three, but then we segue to a piece about mushroom coffees from a certified skeptic. We’re on team we like what we like for sure, but apparently writer Ashlee Redger has found a bunch of mushroom faux coffees she actually wants to drink. As the world sinks deeper into the sea and everything we love disappears or starts to suck, maybe we should get on board with this now? Eh, whatever. Read the piece here and make up your own damn minds.
Piccolino’d,
The Fork
