D  e  s  e  r  t   E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e        January 2008

Mediterranean Diet

The new Risotto's in Las Cruces has big goals,
delivers big, bold taste.

Named for the famed Italian rice dish, Risotto's — the new restaurant near the Mesilla Valley Mall — offers a taste of cuisine from Italy and all around the Mediterranean Rim, dished up with fine-dining service and highly seasoned flavor.

Our server, an eager and pleasant-faced young man, is happy to answer any and all questions. The restaurant is not a chain, he responds. The owner does, however, own a string of successful eateries in Mexico, and hopes to open at least eight Risotto's restaurants in the Southwest, from El Paso to Albuquerque.

Step one, the eager young man says, is to bring exceptional Mediterranean cuisine to Las Cruces and do it in the highest professional style. "You can ask me anything you want to know about the food. You can ask any of us," he adds, gesturing toward two other servers in the vicinity. "We've all received thorough training. It's all about the food here."

He apologizes profusely that the restaurant does not yet have its liquor license, a surprising disappointment as the place bills itself as a Bistro Market and Wine Bar. Wine, as well as beer and hard spirits, will figure prominently at Risotto's in the hopefully near future, he adds earnestly. In the meantime, the restaurant offers a complete list of soft drinks, including the house Tropical Iced Tea, which he highly recommends.

Our non-alcoholic drinks swiftly arrive — the mysterious tropical tea possessing flavors of mango, perhaps peach, and definitely a refreshing twist of hibiscus — and the server launches into detailed descriptions of a few main dishes and answers questions about some others on the menu.

Since it's a Sunday, Risotto's is serving the lunch menu all day. There's also a dinner menu served on weekdays, he explains, "with more substantial offerings." The lunch menu is, in fact, no slacker with 11 appetizers, soups, salads, grilled panini sandwiches, pizzas and pasta dishes, as well as eight main-course offerings. Lunch menu portions are slightly smaller, with a pleasingly lower price tag, we note when looking over a dinner menu later.

Among the appetizers, the Chicken Fatayr with herbs and feta cheese, the MedRim Trio with homemade hummus, Baba Ganoush, Mediterranean cream cheese and oven-cooked pita bread, and some Lebanese chicken skewers bring in the Middle Eastern segment of the cuisine. Others — like the traditional Bruschetta di Pomodoro, the Caprese, and the hand-thrown Margherita pizza — fit the restaurant's Italian backbone.

We start with the Scampi — Gulf jumbo shrimp sauteed with roasted bell peppers, garlic and capers, in a delicious white wine and butter sauce — and the Calamari Fritti. The calamari are tempura battered and light, not greasy. The spicy pomodoro dipping sauce is the perfect complement to the tender, tiny octopi.

Next come Minestrone, the traditional soup rendered in all its Italian hominess, and salads. We go with the House — baby greens mixed with a bit of crispy iceberg lettuce and lightly dressed with an olive oil and red wine vinaigrette — and the MedRim Greek Classico, executed to classic simplicity with the usual feta cheese and cherry tomatoes, and dressed with a lemon-oregano vinaigrette. Risotto's has heavier salads — greens topped with grilled shrimp, pan-seared tilapia or grilled salmon — but we're trying to save our appetites for the main event. Along with the salad course, the server brings a small basket of warm homemade Italian bread with a small plate of olive oil, seasoned with freshly crushed garlic.

The service is unhurried, attentive and eager to please. Our waiter stops by to chat more about the food — how fish is flown in fresh-frozen every other day, how the menu includes several of the owner's secret family recipes — and our drinks are refilled promptly and frequently. I begin to wonder if he's caught on that I am a restaurant reviewer, but then note that he and the other servers are paying equal attention to the tables around us.

For entrees, we share the Lasagne Bianca di la Casa and the Chicken Scalopine. The lasagna is creamy, with Alfredo sauce replacing the more usual bechamel, and a filling of spinach and artichoke hearts. The bright, pleasant astringence of the artichokes lightens up the rich Alfredo. The pan-seared chicken breast in the scalopine is tender and moist, wrapped in pancetta and topped with sauteed mushrooms, fresh tomatoes and a creamy lemon butter.

Perhaps owing to the pancetta and the highly flavored sauce, the dish is a bit too salty for our taste. OK, way too salty. The server apologizes and promises to give our feedback to the chef. He offers to bring a replacement, but we decline and get through the meal just fine alternating bites of chicken and the superb lasagna dish. The lunch-sized portions, we decide, are just perfect, especially for people who have indulged in appetizers and are planning on dessert.

When it comes to the final course, we are disappointed the restaurant has run out of pannecotta, the classic Italian delicate custard nearly impossible to find on a menu in the Southwest. There also are a classic cheesecake and vanilla-bean gelato available, but we choose the chocolate mousse with coffee liqueur cream plus a serving of the baklava. Though decadently dark and sweet, the mousse disappoints with a slightly grainy texture and runniness at the bottom of the dish. Was this frozen at one time?, I wonder. The many-layered Middle Eastern sweet, however, arrives crisp, buttery and dripping with honey. Classic.

— Donna Clayton Lawder