I used to go to Turners Falls for dinner at the Shady Glen diner. And the few times I’ve eaten at the Rendezvous, I’ve liked the food. But I never thought about traveling to Turners Falls for fine dining. Until now.
RISTORANTE DiPAOLO (166 Avenue A, Turners Falls, 863-4441, www.ristorantedipaolo.com) opened on the first day of spring in 2006 and immediately attracted some buzz. A number of people whose opinion I trusted told me how good it was and asked whether I’d tried it. Sad to say, it took me until nearly the first day of spring this year to make it up there. I am glad that I did.
Set in a rehabbed building on Turners’ main drag, the inside is dark and inviting. We were meeting friends there and arrived early, so I asked for a menu while we waited. The hostess, who turned out to be owner Denise DiPaolo, obliged, and she also handed me a small flashlight – a nice touch, and one of many.
DiPaolo’s is an Italian restaurant, as you would expect from its name. Chef Hilton Dottin was born in the Dominican Republic, but has spent the last 30-plus years in restaurants from the DR to Florida, New York and Connecticut, a lot of them Italian, his favorite cuisine. The blended Caribbean and Italian influences show in the use of passion fruit in various dishes and also in a ginger-marinated pork chop. More on that later, but it was the juiciest pork chop I’ve had in a long time and one of the tastiest, with the ginger blending smoothly into an otherwise purely Italian-style balsamic glaze.
We started with some good bread, served with a soft garlic and parsley butter instead of the now over-done dish of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We ordered two appetizers, and half portions of two pasta dishes. The Fritto Misto con Calamari ($13) included strips of sweet potato and fried leeks in a citrusy dipping sauce – crisp and greaseless, with the leeks adding an interesting touch. We also chose a roasted beet salad, diced beets over dark greens, sprinkled with candied walnuts, sesame seeds and Gorgonzola ($10).
The same Gorgonzola reappeared in a Risotto alla Gorgonzola ($17/$12.50 for a half portion), which was garnished with a blend of sautéed red bell peppers, snap peas, thin-sliced carrots and zucchini and dried tomatoes. The rice was correctly done, the snap peas were a welcome surprise, and the Gorgonzola was smoothly integrated, neither dominating nor disappearing into the dish. The other pasta, Salmon Affumicato con Penne ($21/$14.50), incorporated smoked salmon into penne pasta in a Dijon mustard and dill cream sauce. Cooking smoked salmon can sometimes produce an overly fishy taste, but not here.
Our arguments began over the entrees: Which one was the best? My vote was for the aforementioned pork chop, Cotoletta di Maiale alla Griglia ($23), sided with the same vegetable mix served with the risotto. Another top vote-getter was the sirloin steak tips with gnocchi ($30), a warm and homey-tasting dish with tender meat and light gnocchi. Linguini with clams ($24) was a surprise in that the clams were the larger cherrystones and there were lemon and red pepper in the sauce. The Pollo alla Romana ($26) consisted of two mozzarella- and prosciutto-filled chicken cutlets, garnished with peas and mushrooms in a dark sauce. It is hard to cook chicken breasts without drying them out. These flirted with being dry, but there were no complaints and there were no leftovers of any kind to take home.
For dessert, we had a chocolate mousse cake, a bombe-style serving of layers of moist cake and dark chocolate mousse, and a rich pistachio gelato, both $9. When I asked for sugar, our server brought a small bowl of raw sugar instead of packets, another touch that I appreciated.
We lingered for a while after dinner. It is that kind of place – dark wood and warm highlights from the lighting in the room. It is hard to picture how the building looked when DiPaolo took it over in the summer of 2005. It had been vacant for 10 years and, as she put it, it had rained inside. She gutted and rebuilt it from the roof down. The banks were reluctant to sign on until she had her chef lined up. When Dottin came on board, the final piece fell into place. They had worked together at the Blue Heron in Sunderland and formed a good working relationship. By 2005 Dottin had moved on to a restaurant in Old Saybrook, Conn., but DiPaolo succeeded in enlisting him to head up the kitchen at her new place.
DiPaolo, who came to the area to work as a house director and instructor at the Northfield Mount Hermon School in 1992, has plenty of new ideas for her restaurant – patio dining this summer; Women Who Wine dinners every Wednesday, with $10 appetizers and $5 wine (men invited). Dottin is working on the spring menu, which should be out by the time you read this.
My wife, who eats at a lot of restaurants these days, is already making plans to go back. Ristorante DiPaolo is the kind of place where you want to try lots of items on the menu. An appetizer of pan-seared scallops and grilled shrimp with spicy red pepper sauce and ginger mango coulis ($13)? Fettucini neri (colored black with squid ink) with shrimp, calamari, scallops and mussels in a spicy marinara sauce ($26)? Jumbo shrimp wrapped in prosciutto in Sambuca sauce over risotto ($26)? Sign me up.
DiPaolo’s is open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday. On a Friday or Saturday, I’d advise reservations.
Originally published Daily Hampshire Gazette, March 19, 2010
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