Osteria Radisa Brings Romagna to Smith Street
A new life for the former Ruthie's Wine Bar from the team behind Aita in Clinton Hill
The team behind Aita, the cozy corner Italian restaurant in Clinton Hill, is opening Osteria Radisa, on yet another cozy corner, this one on Smith Street and Douglass Street in Carroll Gardens, taking the place of what was most recently Ruthie’s Wine Bar. It will open on May 27th.
The restaurant has a lovely new cream-colored facade with a wide awning for cafe tables. French doors open to a beautiful curved bar wrapped in striking custom millwork. The breezy room is decorated with pencil-drawn art, as well as pottery and rustic artifacts indigenous to the Romagna region of Emilia-Romagna, where the menu takes its inspiration.
Rather than dig into the entire region of Emilia-Romagna, Radisa hones in on the rustic dishes of the coastal towns of Romagna that line the Adriatic sea, the ancestral home of partner Giulia Pelliccioni. Chef-partner Roberto Aita’s menu lights up the “forgotten dishes from that region, dishes like rustic pastas that were prepared without eggs because they were too expensive,” said Althea Codamon, the restaurant’s beverage director and front of house partner. “Sort of like now,” she added.
An early draft of the menu (dishes are priced $14-$38) includes a salad of asparagus with green tomatoes and granny smith apples; squash blossoms stuffed with sheep’s milk ricotta, and a dish of Baccalà mantecato, traditional salt cod served with escarole, raisins, taggiasca olives and pine nuts. There are planning a couple of speidini — skewers — one with threaded with lamb sausage, chicories, sweet onion mayo, and another with seppia, eggplant, tomato confit, aromatic crumbs.
Pastas channel spring and are hyper-local to the Romagna region. A “Manfrigoli in brodetto,” a typical hand-cut pasta from Romagna that’s often cooked in brodo, comes with mussels, clams, and shrimp; a Nido di rondine—which translates to “Swallow’s Nests” is another specialty of Romagna; it’s what might happen if lasagna married a cinnamon roll. Here me out. Fresh sheets of pasta are filled with prosciutto cotto and beech mushrooms, then rolled into swirls and tucked into a pan, baked in bechamel until bubbly. Ravioli are stuffed with ricotta and pecorino and dressed simply with ramps.
A really interesting pasta I’d never had before is called “spoia lorda,” which literally means “dirty sponge.” Not a great visual, but perhaps it makes sense in terms of the way this flat ravioli is made. The pasta is rolled out into sheets that get brushed with ricotta and pesto, then topped with another sheet of pasta and rolled out again, then cut into diamond shape and sauced with pesto, asparagus, bottarga, and clams from the Adriatic. That was a favorite during the Friends & Family dinner I attended. While there is a fried lamb dish as an entree, the other sway more pescatarian; there’s a branzino and skate wing.
Codamon’s wine list focuses on natural and low-intervention bottles and spans Italy, bit also on producers across the region including Germany, Slovenia and Corsica. Her cocktail list is creative and playful, with names like “Never for Money,” a mix of coconut-washed Ginebra Gin, with basil, pomelo, and calamansi, “...I think it was Madonna,” a beachy mezcal drink mixed with ginger falernum, Dell'Etna amaro, and lime.
The name of the restaurant, “Radisa,” is taken from the Roman dialect; it translates to “roots.” “It can mean a root like a radish, but also roots of tradition, culture, and family,” said Codoman, who is Filipino. “My husband Fernando [Trujillo, also a partner in the restaurant] is Mexican, and Roberto, Giulia and her brother Luca [also a partner] are Italian. It's an interesting mix of partners with different roots. The concept of family is what we are building. These are our ideals and values that tie our culture and roots together.”
Osteria Radiso will open Wednesday May 27th. It is located 241 Smith Street, 917-909-1111, instagram is @osteriaradisa, radisabrooklyn.com