Restaurant Week Lunch #3

One of the main reasons to enjoy Restaurant Week is the ability to try restaurants I would never ordinarily be able to afford.  Lincoln Ristorante is definitely one of those places.  Open since 2010, Lincoln is in a beautiful spot near Lincoln Center Theater - across from the reflecting pool and under the odd shaped turf.  It's surrounded by glass and flooded with light.  Even though the reservation hotline says the 'dress code' is casual elegant, Lincoln isn't stuffy at all.  The service is warm and friendly and the atmosphere was very comfortable.  I went for RW last Friday.

My lovely co-worker and I sat in a very comfortable banquette and enjoyed a leisurely lunch.  Since I didn't have any plans for after lunch, I decided to add the wine option to my lunch.  The menu said the wine would be in 4-oz tasting sizes, but I'm pretty sure our charming server poured me full-sized glasses.  I was perhaps a little tipsy by the end of my lunch.  :)

After a tasty amuse bouch of mozzarella en carozza, my first course was the burrata e lampascione, the creamy buffalo milk mozzarella, alongside heirloom tomatoes, watermelon and cantaloupe, atop a delicious salsa verde.  This was a delicious, light and fresh start to my meal.  The burrata was soft and creamy, the melon was sweet, and the salsa verde was savory and herbacious.  I used some of the housemade foccacia they gave us to sop up every bit of that yummy sauce.  The wine served was a vernaccia di san gemignano from Tuscany.  It was crisp and also light and the perfect pairing with the cheese.

For my second course, I ordered the zuppa alla tarantina, which was an amazing soup - rich and warm tomato-saffron broth with clams, mussels and chickpeas in it, and a perfectly cooked piece of flounder on top.  I can't really describe all the delicious layers of flavor in this dish - it was slightly spicy, briny, sweet from the tomato broth and just incredible.  I loved it.  I also loved the wine, which may have been one of the best red wines I've ever had, a primitivo negroamaro from Puglia.  So smooth and rich, I could've just had it for my second course and been pretty happy (though I would've regretted missing the zuppa).

My dessert was also incredible - I ordered the pasticciotto leccese.  This was an almond cake with a center layer of rich lemon curd.  There was a fig marmalata, fresh figs and, best of all, buttermilk gelato.  Again, that buttermilk gelato was just the perfect, slightly sour counterpoint to the sweet richness of the cake.  And that fig sauce was out of this world good.  A wonderful ending to a fantastic lunch.  I generally don't want to repeat places in RW, but I might have to make Lincoln a regular stop.  It was that good.