Tony May's Palio takes Italian fare into the 80's

Nation's Restaurant News, April 7, 1986 by Paul Frumkin

Tony May's Pailo takes Italian fare into the '80s

NEW YORK -- Not that Palio has opened, it's beginning to appear as if demonstrate single-handedly how multi-faceted Italian cuisine can be.

Palio, located in the new Equitable Center on West 51st Street, joins Camelia and Sandro's--in presenting a broad vision of Italian culinary styles. Whereas the service and decor of all three restaurants clearly dovetail in their approach to elegance, each kitchen's interpretation of Italian cooking seems to be swinging off in a very different direction--a difference that may seem indistinguishable to some but is of vital significance to May.

One of this country's more vocal proponents of authentic Italian cuisine, May had said earlier that most Americans perceive Italian cooking to be stuck in the 1940s. Moreover, he asserts that it is largely the responsibility of restaurateurs and educators to bring them up to date.

To that end, May seems to have followed his own advice. Rather than simply replicating the earlier success of his first restaurant, La Camelia--he and Brian Daly operated but did not own the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center--May has taken pains to develop restaurants that present different aspects of the same cuisine. While La Camelia takes a straightforward approach to classical Italian cooking, Sandro's tends to be more rustic--an updated version of trattoria-style home cooking.

But Palio is very much the Italian cooking of the '80s, May said. "It's contemporary professional cuisine," he said.

In describing his restaurants, May stubbornly resists the more facile categories like regional Italian or, worse--in his opinion--northern Italian. Depending upon the moment, he has been known to either launch into a detailed description of the kitchen and menu or declare simply that "This is true Italian food."

To further define the personalties of each restaurant, May has adopted the French strategy of focusing attention on his chefs. In the past he has propelled Carlo De Gaudenzi and Sandro Fioriti--chef-co-owners of La Camelia and Sandro's, respectively--into New York's culinary fast lane. Now, he is working on Palio's Andrea da Merano.

Palio's chef, Andrea da Merano, was already well on his way to a national reputation in Italy when May lured him to New York late last year. Working at his restaurant, Villa Mozart, near the Austrian border, da Merano was in the forefront of an Italian movement to serve authentic Italian cuisine rather than the potpourri of Continental dishes ost restaurants there had been offering.

Da Merano, who works with a borad spectrum of Italian culinary influences at Palio, explained that "the ability to marry flavors distinguishes the chef. I continually experiment, waking up in the middle of the night with some new idea to try in the morning."

As of this writing, da Merano and his staff of 21 are still experimenting with the menus at Palio. And since both the lunch and dinner menus change on a daily basis, they should have the relative luxury of testing dishes well into the future.

A sampling of Palio's dinner menu is as follows:

Antipasti: spaghettini with salmon roe and chives, $8.50; raw filet of beef with goose liver, $8.50; breast of turkey in tuna sauce, $8.50; casserole of baby squid with chard, $9.50; ricotta dumplings with truffled butter, $9.50.

Pasta and risotti: radicchio-filled ravioli with butter and sage, $9; gnocchi with frogs' legs, $9; risotto with quail, $18.

Pesce; lobster stew with tomatoes and broccoli, $22.50; grilled eel with polenta, $22.50; scampi rolled in herbs and baked, $22.50.

Carne and pollame: sauteed filet of beef with roasted peppers, $18.50; casserole of pigeon with olives and polenta, $18.50; pork filet with gorgonzola sauce, $18.50; loin of veal with string beans and basil, $18.50.

Dolci: chestnut-stuffed apple with cinnamon cream, $6; chocolate almond cake, $6; black polenta pudding with a white chocolate sauce, $6; chilled cream with strega, $6.

Average per-person checks for food only are currently running about $30 at lunch and about $40 at dinner.

May said he is trying to purchase as many raw food products as he can at local markets. Nevertheless, he still uses such imported products as snails, olive oil and flour.

While most things went smoothly at the opening, there was one critical flaw: Palio was forced to open without a liquor license. According to May, his application had been placed with the State Liquor authority a full 10 weeks before the restaurant's opening. "Maybe they're overworked or understaffed there," he said, sourly. "Anyway, we should have had it by now."

Once the list is in place, however, it will feature red and white Italian and American wines and some French champagnes.

In terms of design and decor, Palio is almost certainly the most elegant of May's restaurants. Customers center the restaurant through a ground-level bar dominated by a stunning four-panel mural measuring 54 ft. by 124 ft. Painted by Sandro Chia--reputedly for a cost of $500,000--the neo-expressionist painting represents the Palio of Siena, an 800-year-old horse race honoring the Assumption of the Virgin and the restaurant's namesake. The bar is made of polished marble.