Torroco! Italian Grill
4810 NW 86th St., Urbandale,
334-3085
Mon. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 10
p.m. |
Torocco!
Andrew Meek is having a huge
spring. In April, his Sage restaurant
became one of the just three nominees
for the Golden Clog Award as America’s
“best restaurant not located in
a culinary center.” Two weeks
later, he opened his second café,
changing his title from chef-owner
to restaurateur. Torocco, in a
former Jesse’s Embers steakhouse,
is considerably larger than Sage,
so Meek is now playing the high
anxiety game of expanding a brand
without devaluing it.
The new 135-seat place (plus
30 more in a private room) opened
to big buzz. Meek recruited some
top local talent: bartender of
the year Harold Otis moved over
from The Latin King; chef de cuisine
Matt Pearson came from Dish. Still
Torocco, named for a type of blood
orange, is not Sage. It’s considerably
less expensive. Lunch prices range
from $7 to $19. Dinner entrees
range between $14 and $24. There’s
even a kids’ menu priced from
$4 to $7. The wine list stays
under $50 a bottle with 10 available
by the glass for under $8.
The remodeling job looks like
million bucks. The old bar was
removed and divided between a
private room and part of the main
dining room. The walls and ceiling
were strikingly lit and recessed
in red and black. New landscaping,
faux marble floors and a new portico
bar lend an Italian look. A new
street-front patio should be up
and running by Memorial Day.
A fried seafood appetizer included
two each of frog legs, oysters
and shrimp plus a marinara dip
and a good aioli. A house antipasto
included some mortadello, ham,
plus good soft cheese and hard
cheeses, asparagus spears and
artichoke hearts. A Tuscan white
bean chowder with homemade sausage
bested a confused seafood minestrone.
A simple salad delivered the freshest
greens I had tasted in six months
and treated them with a full-flavored
(Sicilian style) olive oil and
vinegar dressing.
Some entrees came with Sage
style. Chilean sea bass was pan
roasted and served on a chickpea
puree with truffle oil. Pan-fried
walleye was served with eggplant
puree and roasted tomato broth.
A New York strip was given old-fashioned
Italian Des Moines treatment with
gorgonzola sauce and mushrooms.
Pasta dishes are the rage here,
so much so that baked ziti, which
requires hours of preparation,
was selling out by 6:30 in the
evening. That dish and lasagna
were served stacked high with
marinara, meat and cheeses. Meek
took more liberties with other
pasta dishes. His Bolognese eschewed
the traditional home made tagliatelle
for the locally popular penne.
It delivered a good braised combo
of veal and pork with carrots,
celery and onions — but no tomato
paste at all. His linguine carbonara
used a superb Parmigiano-Reggiano
cheese and substituted homemade
pancetta (pork belly bacon) for
the hard-to-explain guanciale
(pork jowl bacon). It added the
American touch of a sherry cream
sauce.
Two Meek signatures visited
from Sage as $4 side dishes. His
Brussels sprouts, halved and sautéed
in caramelized sugar have converted
many people who had never previously
liked that vegetable. Similarly,
his brown butter polenta has turned
hundreds of Iowans on to cornmeal.
A $7 meatball pannini, with Asiago
cheese and banana peppers (lunch
only), is a winner. It‘s also
Meek’s personal favorite sandwich.
Desserts were uneven during
the opening weeks. Three slices
of roasted banana accompanied
two cream-stuffed cannoli in a
good one. Crostini di susina didn’t
work — one little piece of toast
disappeared in a soup of peach
and plum sauce that needed contrasting
textures. Meek’s homemade ricotta
cheese ice cream, with balsamic
compote and fresh strawberries,
is the best bet for now.
Side dishes
Trostel’s Dish replaced their
only entrée, prime rib,
with a very short menu of steaks
and chops… Nana’s completed a
move to a larger building one
block north at 3916 N.W. Urbandale
Drive.… Iowa Culinary Institute
(ICI) will serve 200 different
bottles of medal winning wine
at a fundraising dinner May 31
to help ICI students travel abroad;
$30, reservations required, 964-6229.
CV
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