Taverna dell’ Arte was a small place that opened in 1990. The small tables were closely positioned and covered in beige cloths on top of black ones and set with beige napkins. Outside there was a porch area with lots of candles. Inside the lighting was lowered and music was in the background. There are several rooms divided by half walls and some full partitions. There was lots of dark wood and various decorations were on top of things and hung on walls. The windows were covered. The staff was friendly and spoke fairly good English, as I heard several tables speaking English. There was a large menu in both English and Italian and everything was a la carte. There were a lot of drink options. The chef came out and visited with some but not all of the tables. Overall this place was okay, not great.
Bread service was a couple slices of doughy thickly sliced bread with a crisp crust. The bread had a good chew and flavor.
The lentils cream with cotechino and friarielli was a bowl of lentils, broccoli rabé and sausage with some crisp bread strips on the side. It was a good combination of flavors and textures. The crisp bread was perfect to dip into the thick creamy soup. This was a good one.
Sorrento’s Citrus Risotto with mozzarella and prickly pear ketchup was a bit tart from the citrus. It was lightly sweetened with the ketchup. The rice was cooked perfectly and it had a good runniess. The green stripe was the dried friarielli or broccoli rabe. It was a good dish but not great.
A housemade tagliolini with cheese, 5 peppers, star anise and lemon zest was good. The pasta was cooked perfectly and had nice light seasoning and saucing. Another good but not great dish.
We split the beef filet and it was cooked perfectly as ordered and fairly tender. The sauce on the top was mostly tasteless but the meat needed it to moisten and give it more flavor. The well seasoned broccoli rabe greens were cooked nicely and not bitter. They matched nicely with the beef and gave the plate more flavor. The plate it came on had a weird spot in the middle that kept making you think there was something there to add flavor.
The Caprese chocolate cake was made with nuts and topped with powdered sugar. It was really crumbly and a tad dry but with good chocolate flavor. The nuts added a fun crunch. Mark this one as good, not great too.
They sent us home with a parting gift of some cookies made by the chef.
