Portfolio at NYU

Posted 01.05.08
Italian for Beginners
Il' Forno dishes Italian fare with a touch of flair.

By Freda Moon

Published in the New Haven Advocate on September 05, 2007

Il' Forno Ristorante and Bar
591 Boston Post Rd., Milford, (203) 283-5033, ilfornoristorante.com

My branzino arrived at our table as a perfect specimen from the sea. This was not the sort of deep fried, unrecognizable-as-fish seafood platter I've become accustomed to living in the Northeast, where rubberizing these delicate creatures seems to be some kind of bizarre regional pastime.

The branzino-a Mediterranean sea bass with white flesh and a clean, unfishy flavor-came to me whole, complete with head and tail, skin and gills ($20). It was beautiful, a silver flash in the dim light of Milford's newest Italian restaurant, Il' Forno Ristorante and Bar, where branzino is a frequent guest star.

Then, in the flickering candle light, our waiter went about tearing my beautiful fish apart. It had to be done, of course, and the process was a gruesome pleasure to watch. The waiter wrestled gently, using only a knife and fork, to remove the head, then tail, spine and skin. He turned open the fish's insides-which had already been removed and replaced with sprigs of thyme, rosemary and slices of lemon-to lay out the flesh in an expertly splayed filet. What was handed to me-a plate heaped with brocoletti (a wonderful, bitter green), wedges of herbed red potatoes and more fresh fish than I could eat-was simple, the kind of straight-forward dish that makes Italian "home style" cooking so deeply satisfying.

Don't get me wrong, this is not unsophisticated food or an inelegant restaurant. It is much more elegant, in fact, than one could reasonably expect from its convenient, yet unfortunate, location (it sits at the junction of three major thoroughfares: the Post Road, I-95, and the Milford Parkway overpass, which shoots almost directly overhead). It's easy to fantasize about someplace else while sitting in the open, wood-floored dining room.

The space, with its burnt orange walls, cloth napkins and merlot-colored curtains, is classic-not trendy or modern. It's warm, welcoming and wholly appropriate to the food it serves. But who wouldn't prefer the sparkling horizon or small town street to the endless stretch of strip malls that is Milford's section of Post Road? It may have just been me-after a long week, and too many too hot days in a row-but Il' Forno's food felt like it deserved a spot on the water, with a view of boats on the Sound and the smell of the sea. Italy, after all, is a country surrounded by sea. A restaurant with Il' Forno's emphasis on ingredients and attention to the small touches evokes its homeland more than most.

It's the little things that make Il' Forno special: its generous basket of fresh bread, with an olive oil and cannelloni bean salsa for dipping, on the table as soon as we sat; the tremendous skill and care taken by the waiter (the night I was there, a slow Thursday, there was only one)-who stopped mid-way through cleaning the branzino to return it to the oven for two more minutes of cooking, recognizing it as ever-so-slightly underdone; and, of course, it was the complimentary, home-made biscotti and their potent, sweet--tart, house-brewed orangecello.

Tim's steak, filetto di manzo alle Frantoiana, was a thick piece of grilled filet mignon on top of a nest of mashed potatoes and moist, limp spinach ($19). It was, again, a simple dish-not inventive, not different from anything you've ever tasted. Instead, it was exactly what the menu said it was, exactly what we wanted: tender meat, grilled right (deep pink inside, as rare steak should be). It was so good that even with an entire fish in front of me, more food than I could easily finish, I couldn't resist stealing bites. We left happy, a bit giddy (that orangecello really is strong) and with a renewed appreciation for both Italian food and Italy itself.