Il Vesuvio (Bayside)

[Jim Leff]

I was asked on another board:

__________
do you know if that italian place in (i think) bayside queens is still just as good? i went there with someone i suspect you know from muso circles (jennifer charles), having read your review on chowhound, and the clam sauce was as good as i've had since i was on the amalfi coast in italy. seriously!
__________

I loved this place dearly (went every week for a while), but had two disappointing meals in a row and never went back. Which isn't fair...they were never super consistent, so I may have just been unlucky. It's the sort of place that's extremely extremely chef-driven. When the Magic Hands themselves don't cook your food, you don't get the all-essential touch....and the result's inert.

I know that there are a few people on this board who never liked the place much, and they've already added their feelings to the mix. But is there anyone out there who did share my high esteem for Il Vesuvio and can offer a recent report of downhill, uphill, or just hill...relatively speaking?

ciao

[Jim Leff]

Here's more info, from my Chow Alert Newsletter, a weekly emailed tip sheet crammed full of stuff like this (subscribe and read samples at link below):

--------
THE SWEET SMELL OF FAILURE

Il Vesuvio (39-34 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, Queens; 718-279-4100) is a hip pretense, a delicious put-on. The perpetrators of all this wittiness, a couple of very talented from-Italy chefs, won't let you in on the joke. Like Andy Kaufman, they never, ever, break character.

Imagine if two highly-cultivated banquet chefs from Canton were to open a take-out joint somewhere. Say they never revealed their identities and declined to offer a single serious dish from back home. Say they gleefully delighted in whipping up egg rolls and moo shoo and chicken with broccoli, and beamingly threw lots of duck sauce into your take-out bag.

The Il Vesuvio guys are the Italian equivalent. I haven't the slightest doubt they could open a regional Italian restaurant in Manhattan to much acclaim. Their cooking betrays serious training, and they reliably conjure up deft deliciousness. And they're failures; every bite evokes Italy, in spite of their best efforts.

I have no idea which region their hypothetical Manhattan swanketeria would evoke, because I have no idea where they're actually from. It's beside the point. You don't go to Il Vusuvio for Italian food, you go for Italian-American food...and, if you're hip, to experience the performance art. I've eaten there at least 25 times in the past six months, because my insatiable need to delve into the put-on matches my insatiable yen for their great cooking. I make the 20-minute trip as eagerly as I once followed Andy Kaufman's TV appearances.

The co-owners of Il Vesuvio have inhabited a stupid generic Italian-American pizza/pasta storefront in Queens, and, dammit, that's what they aim to be. It's essential to realize how mind-bendingly straight these guys play it. On my first visit, the genteel waiter (an Italian grad student working in NY for the summer) positively recoiled in horror when he realized that I'd been served my water glass without a straw. It wasn't a condescending sort of horror ("you, little American man, must have your STRAW") - not the horror of a Chinese waiter who's neglected to bring you a fork. He was upset because, in this game they're playing, "i"s must be dotted and "t"s crossed.

The "i"s and "t"s here include: baked ziti pizza (how can they LIVE with themselves??), tons of sauce on the pastas, parmesan cheese in a shaker bottle earnestly offered for application on EVERY dish, and a soundtrack of red sauce hits ("That's Amore" on heavy rotation). They don't chill the red wine, but I'm quite sure it's only because no one's dehipped them to that yet. Shhh.

The Il Vesuvio guys are not pandering. My take is they truly, genuinely dig Queens Italian-American food as an ethnic cuisine unto itself (just as Kaufman sincerely dug Elvis). They are not "redefining this tired genre." They are not "breathing new life and vibrancy into the repertoire of tired hits." They're doing nothing of the sort; cleverness is not the goal and there are no palpable winks. They are committed to serving straight-down-the-middle stupid Queens Italian food with an utterly straight face.

Thank heaven for failure. I don't care what obscene quantities of (rich, amazing) meat sauce they lard onto the gnocchi, how gleefully they profer their (profound) chicken parmigiano rolls or how egregiously they overburden the broccoli rabe with browned garlic. Every bite tastes like Italy, the touch is unmistakeable. It's funny to consider that while much nominally Italian food in this city bears discordant Italian-American inflections, this place alone has the converse "problem."

Real pasta dishes prepared by talented Italian-born chefs are a discrete thing, almost an energy level rather than a material entity. This is one of the few restaurants whose pasta has that edge. Even using American recipes, these are unmistakably Italian pastas, and that's a rare grail in this town. Their meatballs are inarguably excellent. These guys probably never saw a meatball in their lives until they got here, but they've studied hard and come up with the goods: ur-meatballs which press all the right buttons (best with lotsa melted cheese, naturally). Their pizza is the best non-brick oven version in Queens, particularly the grandpa pizza (a thin-crust sicilian with fresh mozzarella and wonderfully subtle plum tomato sauce). Vegetable pizza, true to Ital-Amer style, is crammed way too full with vegetables. But the chefs just can't help it...each morsel maintains its separate flavor and texture, and all combine harmoniously.

The sole problem here is that too much confidence is placed in assistant cooks, and it's simply too much of a stretch to expect Mexicans trained by urbane Italians to simulate and transmogrify crass Italian-American cooking. Since the great draw of this kitchen is its knack/touch/sensibility, when that's missing the result can be rather empty. If either of the two chefs broiled styrofoam, I'd eat it gladly. But if they don't get their hands on a dish, that dish will disappoint. And that is, alas, impossible to anticipate.

You'll generally do best by sticking with specials, where they come closest to stepping out of character. One of my favorites is pork chops smothered in onions and greens. It's juicy and fantastic, broiled to perfection. I almost always order the expensive, ambitious sorts of things I'd normally shun in such places. Considering that everything's under $20, they're still bargains; these guys could easily be cooking for twice the price in Manhattan. What a pleasure to enjoy them out here, in formica booths.

So I go for specials like linguini with salmon and pancetta (stellar), steak pizzaola (lustily fantastic), penne with chicken, pesto, and porcini mushrooms (deeply satisfying). Always the most expensive, most unlikely, most discordant dish. If I ever spotted lobster risotto on the specials list, I'd grab it in a second...though I'd not even consider it in any other restaurant of this genre. But, of course, Il Vesuvio is of an entirely classier level than the level to which it aspires.

From the regular menu, I like tricolore salad (with perfectly textured shavings of fresh Parmiggiano), broccoli rabe, hot heroes (wonderful; they haven't yet figured out how to do them the standard way yet, and proportions are deliciously off-kilter). Baked pasta dishes taste like your Italian grandmother in Ozone Park baked them - as portrayed by a real chef from Italy. Trippy, yes, but great.

Further extending the weird contrariness, Monday nights, when the main chef takes off, are a highlight. The other chef (his co-owner) has a distinct style, best experienced via his specials.

Il Vesuvio grows on you. Its greatness is so insidious that it's easy to complete a meal here without realizing the importance of what you've eaten (the kitchen's inconsistency - due to that delegation problem - adds another barrier). It may take several visits before one attains the giddy realization that important food is being eaten. Il Vesuvio is a "relationship" type of restaurant rather than a one night stand.

But above/beyond the great cooking, it's an absolute riot to eat here and enjoy the layers. I do my best to act the part, too, careful to never exhibit refined restaurant behavior. I dress poorly, I read the newspaper while eating, I take bites directly from my bread rather than break off little chunks. I drink soda with a strawer and pronounce it "strawer." I can't bring myself to accept the ritualistic twist of freshly-ground black pepper, but I suppose I'm just not mainstream American enough.

They're easy to get to. LIRR is around the corner, and while drivers will find parking tough, I know a secret space. Head south on Bell, pass the restaurant on the right, and make your first right. Make another quick right, and notice the parking lot immediately on your right. The sidewalk dips for the entrance to that lot a lot more widely than is called for. You can park along the portion of the dipped sidewalk which doesn't directly lead into the lot. Nobody else ever does (for you, Chow Alert subscribers, all my most closely-guarded secrets!).

Link: http://chowhound.safeshopper.com/25/c...

[Steve Drucker]

1. You make this Little Neck boy awful homesick for Bell Blvd environs, where as recently as 1979 I still could get the best egg cream anywhere.

2. If the food even remotely matches the feeling underlying the rhetorical elegance used to describe it, I will have to make this my immediate next stop after CHPS upon my next visit to Queens.

Sigh. Our visits up north are never long enough, and we almost always wind up bunking in Manhattan. If only Queens hotels weren't so gamey. It seems that that's the one thing that hasn't changed in my home borough, unlike the variety and flavors of restaurants which has just exploded since I left back when Pam Grier was still getting top billing.

[billyblancoNYC]

CHPS?

[Stuart]

corona heights pork store, for great hot Italian hero sandwiches. Also see the post above and do a search on this board, awesome chow.

[Jim Leff]

Just as a quick aside, re-reading that (which was written months ago), it comes off like a condemnation of Italian-American food...which I love and adore (when it's good...e.g. Difara's) in my eagerness to draw distinctions with this place. I'm comparing it to the standard LOUSY Italian-American places it models itself on, but didn't make that clear.

Italian-Italian food isn't somehow "better" than Italian American. Deliciousness is deliciousness! Of course!

[stuart]

I have been going to Vesuvio about once or twice a month since you discovered and wrote about it and have always enjoyed the food. As of last week the brothers were still running the show with the mom and dad sitting in the end both by the kitchen, watching and helping. I love the veal parm hero(one of my all time favorite sandwiches that I first ate at the long gone Holly Inn on Kissena Blvd in Flushing) and order it almost every time I go. Interestingly, the last time I went something was amiss. The bread was still perfectly toasted, the veal paper thin and the sauce abundant and dark,but the sandwich did not have that special spark of flavor, something was missing.I'll probably back in the next day or so and expect that all will be back to normal. When that sandwich is on, I enjoy it more than the one at CHPS. I agree with you about the specials being terrific having enjoyed a rabbit pasta dish that was not even on the blackboard but recommended by the waitress. I will not give up on them yet as they have earned my respect and patronage by virtue of countless delicious meals.

[Motts McGregor]

I haven't been lately, but the ricotta cheesecake there is truly extraordinary and has been so on every occasion. And I do have it on every occasion I'm there, despite the more-than-ample Italian-American-sized portions of everything that comes before dessert.

-Motts

[alexander1111]

vesuvio is great give another try....

[stuartlafonda]

Hey! Thats me! I wish we could see that thread in the old style posting ladder form. As much as I understand the desire to lock threads after a certain period of time the occasional ancient eruption is enjoyable. Boy do I miss CHPS, I still think about it , particularly when I am at Lemon Ice King.
I have not been to Vesuvio in about a year but have been to the the family's other place in Whitestone where they can put out an exceptional plate of pasta I will have to hit Bell Blvd to check up on the veal parm hero and report back.

[Jim Leff]

The bell blvd location has been sold. But is still pretty good (if you stick to specials, as always)