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  • New Haven Advocate Review

  • By Philip Innes
    Published 04/30/98

  • There’s a quiet revolution underway in the restaurant business. At Hama Japanese Restaurant in Hamden, Raul Quichimbo, an Ecuadorian chef, bedevils diners with authentic Japanese food. Recently, beloved French chef Patrick Boisjot surrendered Le Petit Cafe in Branford to open a cooking school at the University of New Haven. He was bought out by the sensational Roy Ip, a classically trained French chef from Hong Kong. At La Luna Ristorante, also in Branford, some of the best Italian cooking you’ll ever stick a fork into is being lovingly prepared by Edgar Ortiz and his brother Genaro, who are of Ecuadorian extraction.

    Is America ready for this? If the crowds cramming into La Luna on a Saturday night were any indication, greater New Haven, at least, is.

    Our corner of the atrium room was bathed in an orange glow by the setting sun. A pianist filled the room with tinkly renditions of sentimental favorites. Slices of foccaccia and a crusty, brick oven Italian loaf were escorted by huge green olives and garlic-infused olive oil.

    Forget all that nonsense about hints of raspberry and blackberry flavors with touches of peppery oak. Our Belvedere “Dry Creek” Zinfandel, Sonoma ($26) was a real nice red, dry without being harsh.

    Our soup specials were delightful (though needlessly flavored with tiny strips of prosciutto). The Brussels sprouts soup ($2.75) came with quartered Brussels sprouts in a well-rounded vegetable stock. For the tortellini soup ($2.75), sautéed carrots and onions were added, with green, white and orange ricotta-stuffed tortellini, to the same stock.

    “Oh my God, I’m impressed!” was my wife’s spontaneous reaction to the antipasto caldo di Luna ($8.95). This glorious appetizer consisted of two lobster claws, Cajun-spiced shrimp and scallops stuffed with fresh mozzarella and wrapped tightly with mozzarella and prosciutto, portobello mushrooms grilled to perfection and fried artichoke hearts, all in a vodka-splashed lobster sauce. With a little fresh pasta on the side, I would happily have made a meal of this.

    Many of the dishes we tried required a delicate balancing act. Zuppa di cozzo ($5.75), fresh mussels sautéed with cherry tomatoes, red onions, roasted peppers and goat cheese in a light wine broth, would have been ruined had the goat cheese been allowed to overrun the other flavors. Instead, the dish was a triumph of subtlety, the young mussels perfectly set off by the other flavors. The mussels, cultivated on ropes, were uniform, gritless and tender.

    We were already filling up when we spied our main courses approaching on big plates. Wrong! It turned out to be our salads, which came with the dinners and which we’d forgotten. Our pretty arrangements of mesclun greens, plum tomatoes and shoehorn-shaped endives were sprinkled with gorgonzola, the plate smeared with basalmic vinaigrette, allowing one to control the strength of the dressing.

    Our dinners arrived soon thereafter. Smothered with a mixture of wild, shiitake and portobello mushrooms, my bistecca di casa ($15.25) was a wonderfully charred New York steak in a sumptuous brandy sauce. The giant steak knife should require a license to operate heavy machinery.

    Poor planning on our part, the tagliatelle all’a Luna ($15.95) featured twin lobster tails and picked lobster meat over al dente fettucine noodles in the same decadent lobster sauce that accompanied the appetizer. I don’t know if the wine or the lobster got to my wife first, but she started singing to me with the piano.

    Our white tablecloth was crumbed in anticipation of dessert. I ordered a glass of Founder’s Reserve port ($4). My wife asked our waitress to hold her espresso ($2.25) until the desserts arrived, because she’s not happy unless her coffee’s hot enough to form the basis of a lawsuit.

    Desserts were punctuated by beautiful plate-painting. Both plates had La Luna scripted on them and designs in chocolate syrup and raspberry and mango coulis. A spongy, flavorful tiramisu ($4.50) came in a dessert goblet, while a slice of turtle cheesecake ($4.75) was topped with chopped walnuts and caramel sauce.

    Our 10:30 p.m. departure was noteworthy for the packed dance floor we passed on our way out and the four cars vying for our parking space. La Luna has clearly struck upon a winning formula, and the public has taken notice.