Review: Via Matta Restaurant (79 Park Plaza)
Via Matta (Source: yelp.com)
On November 22nd, The Pacific held its inaugural dinner at the Italian restaurant Via Matta: a moderately priced ($30 – $50) up-scale Italian restaurant nestled between hotels and boutique shops at Park Plaza. Unlike your run-of-the-mill Italian eatery, Via Matta has decided to take the gamble that the American population can recognize good Italian food even when it’s not covered in tomato sauce[1]. Indeed, Via Matta’s professed specialties are the northwest cuisines of Piedmont, Tuscany, Liguria, and Emilia Romagna. Piedmont, in particular, is about as far away as you can go from the traditional spaghetti and meatballs as you are forced to trade in your twirl-and-slurp for dishes of a much earthier and creamier disposition. Egg-based noodles, fragrant truffles, hazelnuts, strong cheeses, cream sauces, and world-renowned red wines are continual features in Northwestern Italian cuisine and a welcome change from the “Frutti di Mare no more!” syndrome of the North End.
The restaurant’s ambience falls somewhere between romantic date spot to lounge and the spacing between tables provides for enough privacy to discuss everything from business in the boardroom to the bedroom. The service was generally very good and the wine selection comprehensive enough to provide accompaniment to our various main courses:
Pappardelle with wild boar (Source: yelp.com)
Pappardelle with wild boar and chanterelle mushrooms: The food, although flavorful, lacked enough textural diversity to keep my attention and stay interesting
Seared medium rare salmon over lentils, pomegranate seeds and bacon with a foam: Seared salmon was great. The lentil mixture was a little salty for my taste.
Steak sirloin with onions, tomatoes, and eggplant ratatouille. The sirloin was cooked perfectly and was also very tender. The seasoning was superb, and the eggplant side matched very well.
Fettuccine with lamb sausage: The fettuccine was tasty but not overly memorable – the lamb sausage worked well, but there could have been more of it.
Overall, our group of five SP food reviewers gave Via Matta 3.5 out of 5 stars. The most common complaint was that the restaurant’s prices were a bit steep considering the quality of the meal. Although many of the dishes were firsts for us, the monotonicity and complexity of the meals left us wanting more. Whether it was the lack of color, texture, or flavor diversity, the meals often came up short on replay value as we trekked across the plate. Certainly a great date location but not the absolute best Italian Boston has to offer.
By The Pacific
[1] Interestingly, as the tomato is a “new-world” fruit which means it actually didn’t make its way into European cuisine until the late 1500’s to early 1600’s.