MORANDI is Keith McNally’s first dud. No big deal: An artist is enti tled to flop one time in five. But “the man who invented downtown” is so off his game with this wobbly Italian trattoria at 211 Waverly Place, you hope he hasn’t lost his touch for good.
“Dud” is relative, of course. A month since the opening, the media is still ablaze with Morandi mania. Tables for dinner are nearly impossible to come by, and there are enough celebs in the house nightly for a Page Six-ful of sightings.
The boldfaces drop odd nuggets of wisdom. Mirthfully mustachioed John Waters at the next table laughs, “That’s called fatal attraction!” Gwyneth Paltrow introduces rocker spouse Chris Martin to Michael Kors, “You haven’t met my boyfriend – oh, I mean my husband, Chris.” America’s “weird,” Gwynnie?
It would be impossible for a McNally eatery to open without so much buzz. But this time around, the sizzle turns to fizzle under the joint’s timbered, too-low-for-grandeur ceiling.
McNally’s other places are inspired alloys of present and past, rich in ambiguity – from Odeon (which he no longer owns), with its sly superimposition of the 1980s onto the ’30s, to Schiller’s, which evokes an idealized Lower East Side of yore amid the yuppified but still pungent LES of the ’00s.
McNally labored long and lovingly on Morandi, too. He unearthed 150-year-old floor tiles from Genoa and spent several years assembling all the elements on the ground floor of a modern apartment building.
Yet Morandi, far from conjuring the real Italy, looks like a suburban replica of an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. Pastis-like banquettes seem grafted on. Brick arches look embarrassingly new in a neighborhood of authentically old interiors. The Chianti bottles actually have straw baskets.
The most annoying inauthenticity lies on the menu, which is thick as the house brick with floperoos. In a town full of casual trattorias, you wouldn’t even notice Morandi’s also-ran lineup if it were not in a McNally place.
It seems petty to pick on a $5 item, but bagna cauda – a Piedmontese specialty rarely seen in New York – is a joke. What ought to be a bubbling olive oil-and-anchovy cauldron for dipping long vegetables such as carrots is, instead, a tiny pot with a pittance of lukewarm liquid and overcrowded with radishes.
There’s no faulting fried artichokes or smartly turned out vitello tonnato. But more numerous are the likes of tagliatelle Bologonese with “classic meat sauce” of clumsily ground veal and pork and zero sauce.
Polpettine alla Siciliana come in rich, well-realized Italian-American red tomato sauce; sadly, the meatballs are rock-hard, as if they’d been reheated after a night in the fridge.
The food will surely improve. The dining millions love McNally’s other eateries not only for their looks, but also for well-priced dishes worthy of the atmosphere. Chef Jody Williams’ kitchen just might need more time to gel.
Less likely to change is the house attitude. The staff is friendly and helpful – as long as you first acknowledge Morandi to be the absolutely most marvelous place you will ever be blessed to set foot.
A waiter asked if it was our first visit. Told that it was, he said, “Congratulations” without a touch of irony.
Hey, dude – hold the Prosecco until you guys can make baccala that isn’t tougher than old steak.
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