Food editor to Currents Magazines  

Let’s start at the start, and say again how much we like those cheerily twinkling lights and that warm – and sometimes tightly packed but always cozy interior. It always reminds us of the kind of special, semi-secret spots in Italy, that only the cognoscenti seem to know about.

And let’s add that we really didn’t expect the food to be as good as it was back when they first opened: Face it; how many restaurants can you think of that are as good as they were in the opening few months? And that’s assuming the original owners, chefs and staff are still in place and still full of their original enthusiasm. Plus, when we wrote it up - at least three years ago, we think – we said it was one of the best meals we’d had all year…and that our appetizer (a spectacular tuna tartare) was THE best appetizer we’d had all year.

OK, OK…enough with the suspense…How WAS the food? Absolutely delicious, from start to finish: beautifully prepared, imaginatively presented, with only the best and freshest of ingredients in evidence, and with out-of-the ordinary accompaniments, like house-made timbales of polenta, and farro (the sturdy grain upon which the Imperial Roman Empire was built), enriched with creamy parmesan cheese, for example.

For starters, our four diners divided two of that night’s special appetizers – zucchini blossoms, stuffed with a rich ricotta-based filling, then fried with the lightest, crackly crust imaginable…and a truly wonderful medley of lightly sautéed shellfish, with a farro cake to soak up the delicious juices of tender clams, squid and mussels.

For the main course, Mrs. Hilton had chicken al mattone, a free-range chicken beautifully grilled – ‘under a brick’ – with sautéed spinach and some gnocci (not nearly as feather light as our own, but more than tasty enough). Our daughter-in-law – who’s almost always the wisest and healthiest-eater among us, had one of the special fish dishes that night – Halibut, with a lobster sauce, all of which literally melted in the mouth. Our son had to try the pork osso bucco which also melted in the mouth, exactly as promised. Jimi, always the dutiful reviewer, decided he had to test the steak – partly because this is his acid-test of overall ingredient-quality, and of overall cooking capabilities – but partly because we’d brought two excellent red wines along…

…which prompts this important tip...Always bring one or two (or maybe three) fine bottles of wine when you come to Sogno: No bargain-bin specials, please, if you want to do proper justice to the food here. We’d brought along a well-aged and rather pricey Brunello (worth ever penny) and a 1995 Bordeaux – a Chateau Gloria, that we were hoping was still in prime shape, which it was. Our waiter decanted both of them for us, which was exactly what they needed, and boy were they good! And oh, yes, the steak had a nice beefy, well-aged taste, came grilled perfectly as ordered, and with a nice serving of equally delicious mushrooms and some sautéed spinach instead of the starch.

We also enjoyed a very pleasant surprise: While the chefs seem to be the same ones as way back when – or at the least, to have been very well-schooled in the original Sogno recipes and styles – the staff is incredibly more welcoming than the original group. (We actually got an emailed complaint about a ‘snooty hostess’ when we first wrote them up…and, frankly, we had been a bit under-whelmed ourselves, considering all the care that had obviously been lavished on the food). A very nice touch at the “new Sogno”, our headwaiter volunteered that he’d gladly let us mix and match the side dishes to our own taste – something that so often makes too-snooty servers get huffy when you ask.