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In the restaurant business, owning your place is often the ultimate dream. Opening a restaurant is a capital-intensive project, and it can take years of hard work, making contacts and saving money to make it feasible. So a restaurant primarily run by two young men in their early 20s is relatively unusual.
David Mielnicki, 22, the general manager and bartender, cut his teeth in the restaurant business working under Robin Fernandez at Downtown restaurant Bossa Nova. After earning a degree in business, he teamed up with his mother and stepfather, Debbie and Jerry Santucci, to open a restaurant in a spot the parents own in a small shopping plaza on Ohio River Boulevard in Emsworth.
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8070 Ohio River Blvd.
Emsworth
www/cafenottepgh.com
412-761-2233
Hours: Lunch, Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday brunch, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner, Tuesday-Thursday 4-10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 4-11 p.m.
Basics: A flat-screen television and ample drink list are as much a part of the identity of Cafe Notte as the tapas and specials, which run the gamut from straight-up Italian to Asian fusion.
Recommended dishes: Kalamata filet mignon, duck confit coronets, littleneck clams steamed in beer, polenta points.
Prices: Soups and salads, $3.99-$24.99; tapas, $11.99; side dishes, $4.99; desserts, $7.99.
Beverages: Two sparkling wines, seven white and 15 red, starting at $7.50 by the glass; $30-$39 by the bottle, with an additional list of one sparkling wine, two whites and nine reds for $40 and up. Wine list lacks vintage dates but includes tasting notes. Specialty drinks $7.50-$9.50; bottled beer, $3.75-$5.
Summary: Wheelchair-accessible; credit cards accepted; reservations suggested for weekends; corkage $20.
Noise level: Medium loud to very loud.
Soon afterward, they connected with 21-year-old David Herley, who had been cooking at the Rusty Nail in Bellevue for five years and completed the culinary program at the Bidwell Training Center on the North Side. Mr. Herley supplemented his culinary training by reading cookbooks and networking with other chefs to get new ideas.
Despite the relative inexperience of the group, good instincts and hard work seem to have paid off. Cafe Notte almost immediately found an audience when it opened in November and draws a steady stream of customers from the string of river towns along the boulevard.
The lively atmosphere and visible enthusiasm of many customers is especially impressive in light of the challenges of the space. The 40-seat dining area is sandwiched between a large bar and the kitchen, which results in an awkward layout of tables, almost all near the front door, the kitchen or the men's restroom.
A low, fiber-optic-lit ceiling, meant to resemble a star-filled sky, and black-cloth covered tables contribute to the crowded feeling of the room.
The kitchen is also quite small, but Mr. Herley is pushing himself to put out as substantial and interesting a menu as possible. Daily appetizer and entree specials supplement the short list of soups, salads and tapas that make up the bulk of the menu.
Littleneck clams steamed in a beer broth with garlic and parmesan ($8.99) were so delicious we drained the bowl dry, sopping up every last drop with substantial slices of grilled bread, crispy, with a light slick of olive oil soaked into the edges.
Lobster bisque (cup, $5.99; bowl, $8.99) was served steaming hot, with a good chunk of sweet Maine lobster claw meat.
The antipasto salad gets an entire paragraph of description on the menu, but it didn't benefit from the hard sell. We ordered the salad for four, and rather than arranging it so each person could easily take a bit of meat, a bit of cheese and some vegetables, it was tossed together in a jumble of lettuce, large rolled slices of cured meats, thin batons of cheese and a few vegetables, all soaked in an oil-heavy vinaigrette ($11.99 for one, $17.99 for 2; 24.99 for 3 to 5). The capicola, prosciutto and mortadella were not of sufficient quality to justify charging $25 for the platter.
The kalamata filet ($11.99) was one of the best options on the tapas menu. Four thin slices of filet were wrapped around goat cheese with kalamata relish and topped with a microgreen salad. A streak of balsamic reduction on the plate intensified the juicy sweetness of the meat.
Goat cheese also was a good addition to crunchy pastry cones filled with flavorful duck confit ($11.99). In general, Mediterranean-inspired dishes were more successful than those with an Asian-fusion bent.
Soy-marinated hanger steak ($14.99) was very tender, but too salty. It was accompanied by silky-smooth wasabi mashed potatoes that would have stolen the show if they'd been flavored with butter, cream and salt instead of wasabi.
Raw Ahi tuna dressed with a citrus vinaigrette ($11.99) tasted wan and watery next to richly flavored filet tapas.
Small details are being missed, which wind up having a big impact on the culinary experience. A walleye fillet was perfectly cooked with that buttery flavor that makes this fish so popular, but it was served over beans and greens made from greens that hadn't been sufficiently washed. Every bite came with some grit ($14.99).
Too thick an application of spice on the shrimp Mozambique gave the shrimp and rice a gritty texture.
Vegetables need to be cooked with more care. The baby bok choy that came with the hanger steak had tough, inedible cores. Haricots verts, or French green beans ($4.99), were waterlogged while asparagus spears were distinctly undercooked.
Polenta points were the best of the side dishes I tried, crispy on the edges with nice grill marks, and creamy and smooth on the inside ($4.99).
Given the constraints of the restaurant space, the owners might be better off with an even more compact menu, one which allowed them to prepare dishes with more consistency and attention to detail.
Mr. Herley reported that about half of the desserts they carry are made by a local baker, but during my visits, most were ready-to-eat products from Sysco, a global food supplier. He hopes to adjust the desserts soon, switching out some of the more traditional cakes and pies for simpler, seasonal desserts, like rice pudding with peach melba (still to be made by a local baker).
In some ways, Cafe Notte seems more like a bar with above-average food options than a restaurant.
There's a full bar, with more than two dozen specialty cocktails, three or four beers on tap, and all the usual bottled beers. While the beer list was mostly restricted to the usual mass-produced bottles, Elliot Ness from Great Lakes in Cleveland was on draft. The tapas menu has thoughtful pairing suggestions.
Cocktails would benefit from more tasting and experimentation. For example, a Hendrick's Cooler, with Hendrick's gin, St. Germaine, sparkling water and lime juice had a good ingredient list, but needed a more generous infusion of lime and a lower ratio of alcohol to water to make the flavors pop.
Now that the weather is warming up, Cafe Notte's outdoor patio is getting plenty of use. Set back from the busy street, its patio featuring black metal patio furniture with well-padded chairs practically doubles the restaurant's seats. Service standards often slip a little for outdoor dining areas, but here servers were attentive both indoors and out and genuinely enthusiastic about the restaurant and its offerings, which include salsa dancing on Wednesdays, live music on Fridays and a DJ on Saturdays.
While Cafe Notte has some room to improve, it plainly demonstrates that a room full of people having a good time can be a restaurant's greatest asset.
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