I'm continuing my quest to eat meatballs at every single Little Italy restaurant, and La Tavola…read moremissed quite a few marks for me while hitting others.
First, the restaurant is gorgeous. It's one of the most beautiful spots in Little Italy, which is saying something. They use a lot of mirrors, which makes the space feel enormous, and based on ambiance alone, it would make a fantastic date spot.
I ordered a flight of bruschetta, the meatballs, a tagliere of meats and cheeses, and the Culurgiones, an herb-forward stuffed pasta.
The bruschettas tasted good, but they were soggy. It felt like either the bread hadn't been toasted enough or they had sat assembled for too long. Bruschetta should have some crunch and structure; these didn't.
The tagliere was fine, but a little boring. More disappointing, the meats had that industrial, processed taste I associate with inexpensive domestic deli meats from the grocery store. Nothing was particularly bad, but nothing on the board made me want another bite, either.
The meatballs were okay, and I'd probably order them again, but I've had much better elsewhere in Little Italy.
Up to that point, the meal had mostly been a collection of "fine." Where La Tavola really lost me, though, was the Culurgiones.
These are supposed to be stuffed with a potato mixture rife with saffron, pennyroyal, and other herbs. What I got tasted like pasta stuffed with mashed potatoes from a box. They were incredibly bland. Every so often I'd catch a hint of mint, but if there was saffron in there, I'd be shocked, especially since the filling remained almost completely pale, and saffron generally isn't shy about announcing itself with some colour.
I ate one or two and called it quits. Biting into pasta and getting a mouthful of dry instant-potato flavour just wasn't my vibe.
Maybe I ordered wrong, and there may be dishes here that shine. The room certainly does. But based on what I had, this one just didn't hit for me.