3 days ago
New York's Fenice Restaurant Expands Into A Spectacular Location In The Suburb Of Port Chester
SA Hospitality Group has taken its Italian restaurant chain north to Port Chester, NY
Restaurant chains are of three kinds: There are the garish global fast food chains where everything is always the same, good and bad; then there are the global high-end restaurants owned or contracted by celebrity chefs that rarely sustain the quality of the original; the third, like SA Hospitality Group, is able to maintain a consistent chain of fine restaurants that acquire a distinct chic about them wherever they open.
SA was originally known for its Sant Ambroeus cafés and pastry shops, the first opened in Milan in 1936, now with more than a dozen in the U.S. and Europe, all of them beautifully designed, polished and very Italian wherever they are. They also run the posh Casa Lever in Manhattan, as well as a chain of casual Fenice restaurants, the first of which opened in New York in 2007, now with a dozen there and Florida, including the more refined Felice 56, all under the direction of Culinary Director Iacopo Falai.
Fenice is set within a former warehouse from 1903.
Menus are pretty much the same at each, and all maintain a kind of cooking and stylistic flair that draw packed houses of regulars.
The newest in the chain is Felice Port Chester, located in what had been a vast 7,600 square foot warehouse dating to 1903, in recent years converted into a steak house, then a seafood restaurant. Little needed to be done to an extraordinary interior with its high ceiling hung with wide chandeliers, brick walls, patterned carpets, leather booths and banquettes, all artfully lighted and set with linens. To the left is a large bar and lounge where one can also dine. Despite the echoing height of the space, the noise level isn't all that bad, especially in the booths along the wall.
Felice draws from various Italian regions for its extensive menu.
The menu is large, and although SA promotes the idea that they feature Tuscan cuisine, there is actually very little derives from that region. Instead there are items from Rome, Florence, Naples, Sicily and other cuisines throughout, beginning with starters like the pizzette, which are small and fairly flat, with toppings like Margherita, spicy n'duja pork condiment, and mushrooms and Taleggio.
Freshly made spinach and ricotta ravioli
Among the pastas I most enjoyed was the hearty fresh ravioli della casa filled with spinach and simply dressed with butter and sage and Parmigiano-Reggiano. A hefty serving of pappardelle with sweet Italian sausages took on nuances from braised endive, porcini,herbs and a truffle sauce, while potato gnocchi were treated to a springtime pesto and the surprise of creamy burrata. Disappointing, though, was a dish of spaghetti al vongole that did not use small vongole verace clams but instead larger, pulpy New Zealand clams, a mis-step Falai told me would be remedied in the future.
Branzino is steamed in a pouch to retain succulence.
It was good to see a sumptuous, deeply flavorful duck confit on the menu as a special rarely encountered on Italian menus, served with tender white cannellini beans. Tagliata di manzo was twelve ounces of medium-rare sirloin with roasted potatoes, at a reasonable price tag of $53. Branzino at Felice is steamed in an aluminum foil pouch to retain all the juices, lemon and olive oil. Pollo pomodoro e lattuga proved to be a lackluster fillet of white chicken that needed seasoning, helped only by sun-dried tomato pesto, Kumato tomatoes, Bibb lettuce, pickled onions and red wine vinegar.
The dessert your table must share is the 'Signature Felice Gelato Crema Buontalanti'––a mountain of what seemed a quart of soft vanilla ice cream in a silver bowl with various dried condiments on the side. Four of us could not finish it all. Otherwise there are the usual tiramisu, cheesecake and a fine pistachio almond cake.
Where Felice does play its Tuscan hand is in the excellent wine list with all the best labels and quite a few unfamiliar ones, with seven whites and eight reds by the glass.
Who knows how far SA Hospitality will carry the Fenice brand? What will be crucial is their ability to find the professional kitchen and dining room staff to maintain what it has been so successful doing up until now. In Port Chester, they most certainly have.
FELICE Port Chester
55 Abendroth Avenue
Port Chester, NY
Open for dinner nightly; brunch Sat. & Sun.
