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Photo by Ash Daniel
Charred octopus with mojo picon, fingerling potatoes, radishes, sea salt and salsa verde
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Photo by Ash Daniel
Shrimp and grits topped with a soft-cooked egg
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Photo by Ash Daniel
Bucatini carbonara with peas, guanciale and a soft farm egg
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Photo by Ash Daniel
Interior
I can’t watch a cooking show without hero-worshipping the food. There’s just no way that my brain can process the bright gleam of an egg yolk or hear the perfect slurp of an amber-gold dashi broth and not romanticize it. So, having watched Mike Isabella’s triumphs on Top Chef,
I felt that visiting Graffiato would be, in essence, living the dream. But can anything live up to its glamorized, supermodel-stroked TV representation?
The first trip was approached with an attitude that would have made Nike proud. My dining companions and I just did it, methodically exhausting the dinner menu, passing plates around like a culinary game of musical chairs: broccolini with feta and walnuts; roasted cauliflower with pecorino and mint; a big pile of maple-coated, pancetta-studded Brussels sprouts; beets riding a wave of farro. And each of these things, all “vegetate” selections, hit a few too many palate notes to be great. They were good, but the kitchen seems to crank up the oil, the sugar and the smoke to level 11. Just let a vegetable be a vegetable.
Meat and fish, though, won some points — most notably the charred octopus with mojo picon (pepper and garlic sauce). Octopus likes a careful hand, without which it can be too salty, squishy, gunky or dry. It arrived like the sea celebrity that it is: a firm-but-tender bite of briny, meaty goodness with a deep, bacon-like aftertaste. I’m guessing Isabella picked up that technique at Jose Andres’ Zaytinya in D.C., his old stomping ground, which also serves up some crucial tentacle. The dry-aged New York strip was cooked perfectly, replete with flavor, despite the accompanying parsnip puree and ultra-sweet reduction trying hard to mask it. I’d heard a lot of praise for the Amish chicken thighs with pepperoni sauce, but those sat idly by for quite a while as the steak and seafood were demolished. The pepperoni sauce is strange, kind of a Chef Boyardee vs. Mario Batali mash-up. I couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. That usually only happens on leap years.
Onto the pizza and the pasta, otherwise known as The Reasons Most People Go to Graffiato. Our party of four came to the same conclusion over slices of Porky’s Revenge, the most meat-laden pie on the menu: The profusion of great toppings does not a brilliant pizza make. Crust matters. This crust, cracker-thin with visually appealing oven-burst bubbles, didn’t measure up when it came to flavor, leaving the oozy cheese and papery, salty soppressata to carry the whole dish. In the pasta arena, order something rich — they aren’t joking about “small plates.” The $11 cauliflower ravioli, while fairly tasty, wouldn’t put a ding in my appetite, but the bucatini carbonara and its soft farm egg would make a sizeable dent.
When it comes to brunch, Graffiato really works it. It’s truly too bad that they recently switched from a full brunch menu to the regular lunch menu with brunch “features,” because it was easily my favorite meal. The shrimp and grits can contend with any in Richmond; the grits are painstakingly balanced, unlike other versions that are simply exercises in grease tolerance. Graffiato’s are topped with sweet, fresh shrimp, a soft-cooked egg and a sprinkling of pancetta gems. The monkey bread was a fun — and tasty — choice, and the smoked brisket hash must have been great, because it was 86’d by the time we arrived.
I do have to put in a few words about the service, as it was a bit baffling. The pros: it’s very friendly and very consistent. The cons: it’s consistently of the breathing-down-your-neck variety. Boy, can they refill some water glasses. Having a conversation? What is conversation in the face of possible thirst? Pass the glass. That type of thing happened repeatedly with multiple servers; the staff, while quite nice, seems a bit green. But hey, I stayed hydrated.
On the whole, I’d go back and go straight for the gold: the meats, sea delicacies and fatty, no-holds-barred pastas. Those are the touchstones of the Graffiato kitchen. They may not be poetry on a plate, but they’re well worth a visit on a chilly night when your bones need warming. Just don’t watch the Food Network before you go.
Graffiato
123 W. Broad St.
918-9454
graffiatorva.com
Hours: Sunday and Monday: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; pizza oven open until 10 p.m.; Tuesday to Thursday: 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; pizza oven open until 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday: 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; pizza oven open until midnight
Prices: $6-$19; $49 tasting menu
