First, we selected the appetizers grilled calamari and fonduta, a fontina cheese fondue dish served with beef tenderloin and Portobello mushrooms, drizzled with aged balsamic and truffle oil:
This dish was every bit as lavish as it sounds, with the soft melted cheese served over a burning flame, and succulent pieces of mushroom that were just as rich as the meat:
(illuminating the mouth-watering mushrooms)
Other interesting appetizers on the menu include sweet potato ravioli with amaretti, brown butter and sage, and crab ravioli with asparagus, almonds, and saffron - I could come back to Grotto and feast on the primi course alone, frankly.
For the secondi course, I chose the pan roasted diver scallops "ravioli" with leeks, arugula and wild mushrooms:
The diver scallops were cooked to perfection and melt-in-your mouth rich, though the sheet of fresh pasta that topped the dish was not exactly "ravioli" (hence the quotes, I realized), and could have been cut into smaller pieces to be more effective on the dish. I would have happily welcomed more wild mushrooms on the plate as well, after the first course's incredible Portobellos that were so satisfying. This really was more of an arugula salad with really good scallops and unnecessary pasta, in my mind, making for an incongruent dish with tasty aspects to it.
The other entree was an apple-stuffed duck breast with crispy duck leg, prosciutto, dried cherries, with a black truffle oil-Madeira sauce, and parmesan potatoes:
The duck's two preparations contrasted the various cuts of meat, and the salty prosciutto, tart cherries and sticky-sweet sauce complimented the duck perfectly. The potatoes, like the pasta in the scallop dish, felt like an excessive afterthought, not as interesting as the other elements on the plate and just frankly didn't need to be there. Overall, still, a mostly successful dish.
For dessert we shared the lemon panna cotta with raspberry sauce and melting chocolate cake:
In a word: decadent.
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