Perfect balance

>> Graziella makes the grade with its simple and honest northern Italian cuisine

by A.J. KINIK

There, among the trendy and oftentimes garish lounges, chill-out rooms, and assorted bistros that line the new McGill Street, sits a little oasis of sorts. But it’s not just the pleasantly subdued atmosphere, with its muted tones and copious amounts of natural light, that makes Graziella such a joy to visit, luckily for us, there’s also chef Graziella Batista’s inspired northern Italian cuisine.

Graziella is a young restaurant—just a couple of months old—but it didn’t take long before I started hearing firsthand accounts that this was an Italian restaurant worth noting. I’m a bit of an Italian cuisine fanatic, so I was eager, to say the least.

But with dinnertime prices in the $10–$18 range for entrées, and $20–$30 for mains, Graziella seemed well out of the reach of a humble budget resto reviewer. That is, until I heard about their prix fixe lunch menu. Now, let’s be honest here, at $25 for two courses, Graziella’s prix fixe is still a bit of a splurge, but it’s the best kind of splurge—one that actually lives up to all expectations.

With a handful of tempting appetizers to choose from, including a cream of mushroom soup and a charcuterie plate (prosciutto di Parma, coppa, olives, and so on), my guest and I opted for the salad and the cheese plate. Sounds boring, right? Wrong. The salad was a simple mixed greens number with toasted pine nuts, plump raisins, shaved Parmesan, and a delicate vinaigrette, and it was expert—perfectly seasoned, perfectly dressed.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect from the cheese fonduta that I ordered for my appetizer, but boy was I pleased when it showed up. Four ultra-thin slices of cow’s milk caciocavallo cheese were baked in the oven to melting point, then adorned with a few thin slices of rum-marinated orange and a spritz of a fruity olive oil. An unlikely combination perhaps, but it worked and it was surprisingly light and surprisingly refreshing.

We didn’t realize it at the time because we were only one course into our meal, but already we’d located the genius of Graziella: simple, honest cuisine that’s meticulously prepared and perfectly balanced. Sounds almost cliché, I know, but it’s true.

We were off to a good start and, frankly, the main courses looked even more promising than the appetizers. With selections like a grilled prosciutto-stuffed pork chop and homemade tagliatelle with a traditional Bolognese ragù to choose from, it was tough to make up our minds, but eventually we persevered.

Having heard that Ms. Batista had a special knack with pasta, my guest settled on the gnocchi with tomato sauce. When her plate arrived it was studded with the airiest, most ethereal ricotta and Grana Padano gnocchi (“absolutely no potato,” as our waiter emphasized), all of them cooked to tender perfection, all of them graced with a luscious tomato sauce.

I, on the other hand, went with the homemade sweet fennel sausage, and was thrilled to find said sausage braised, sliced on the diagonal in a fetching manner, and perched on top of a bed of roasted root vegetables (fingerling potatoes, carrots, beets and parsnips), the wonderful flavours of the braising juices giving the ensemble added unity.

This was a rustic pork sausage, and it was generous, but it had that deftness of touch that you only find with a fine homemade sausage. Again, neither of these dishes were complicated, neither of them particularly finicky, but everything was done to a T, and we couldn’t have been happier.

And if that wasn’t enough, Graziella serves what may very well be the city’s best cannoli. The chocolate-mascarpone filling is cloud-like, it’s laced with magnificent Sicilian pistachios, the shell is freshly made—we’re talking a first-rate cannoli. Of course, excellence has a price ($7), but it’s worth every penny.

Now, I could quibble about the coffee, I suppose, about how it wasn’t the very best espresso I’ve ever had, but then I didn’t really need that coffee, and if I’d skipped it my meal at Graziella would have been absolutely, totally flawless, right down to the service, so… Drum roll, please.