Food & Drink
Tappo Opens in Stamford
Tappo
51 Bank St., Stamford, 203-588-9870
tapporestaurant.com
It’s never a good idea to book a table at a brand-spanking-new restaurant. Except, when it’s at Tappo. Brothers Joseph and Aldo Criscuolo have turned their Fairfield County pizza empire up a notch (or 10, but who’s counting, really) with this new Stamford venture. The family owns Pizza Post in Darien, Nick’s Pizza in Stamford, Heights Pizza in Noroton Heights, Davinci’s in Norwalk — to name a few — and now they’ve opened Tappo, their first “grown-up restaurant” nestled in a former pottery studio on Bank Street.
This week, a few of us gals at Serendipity were lucky enough to sit down for dinner in the cavernous, yet chic Italian eatery. We were a little early, so we wasted no time in sidling up for some Prosecco and a few healthy pours of primitivo to wash down the piles of grana (a perfectly crumbly sharp cheese imported fresh from Italy) and marinated olives sitting on the bar. To anyone, this would have been a more than satisfying appetizer, but for us, the parade of food had only just begun. Next came bite-sized veal meatballs in a delicate homemade pomodoro sauce, risotto croquette packed with fresh buffalo ricotta, fried baby artichoke hearts and two different pizzas (margherita con mozzarella di bufala and a white pie with Italian bacon, potato and truffle oil). If only we’d thought to wear elastic…
Chef Massimo Stecchi’s food is all business: simple Italian cooking with just enough homemade touches to make you feel like each dish was actually made just for you. Turns out, we had the pleasure of sitting for dinner with Maria Criscuolo, Joe’s wife and one of the restaurant’s owners. (She, of course, was the perfect hostess and the pleasure of her company made the night for us.) Out came beef carpaccio (filet mignon) with truffle cream, arugula and grana, homemade lasagna with asparagus pesto and béchamel, homemade tagliatelle with veal ragu, pesto and shaved ricotta salata and, finally, filet mignon in a red wine and balsamic reduction with shaved truffle, fingerling potatoes and sautéed spinach.
It’s hard to pinpoint our favorite of the night, but a quick look at our empty plates after the lasagna was served would suggest the evening’s best dish was probably more obvious than we thought. Still, the carpaccio was incredibly fresh (even our resident non-meat-eater dug in) and the tagliatelle managed to be feather-light, even with the veal ragu. And just when we thought we were being sent home without a sweet, the hazelnut chocolate mousse showed up with a glass of dessert wine. Clearly, no one was turning down an opportunity for one last bite — especially since Chef Stecchi managed to make a lasting impression by topping this Italian classic mousse with an unexpected drizzle of truffle honey.