Sammy's Trattoria |
|
| 1200 N. Charles St. | |
| Baltimore, MD 21201 | |
| 410-837-9999 | |
|
Hours:
Sunday: 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday: 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday: 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday: 5-11 p.m. | |
| What's nearby: | |
No one goes hungry at Sammy's Trattoria
By Elizabeth Large
Sun Restaurant Critic
Originally published on July 2, 2006
A friend who eats with me regularly
has a conspiracy theory about
restaurants that keep opening and
closing in one location. He thinks the
way to succeed in the business
would be to get a long-term lease
and every two or three years close
down and reopen with a new name,
new concept and new staff. That's
about the length of time it takes for
a hot new restaurant to become yesterday's
news. If things aren't going
well, you can close down and reopen
after six months, like a Broadway
show.
I absolutely do not believe this is
what's happening at 1200 N. Charles.
It just feels that way with the opening
of Sammy's Trattoria where Limoges,
a French bistro, and before it
Tampico, a Mexican restaurant, was.
Sammy is owner Sam Curreri, an
energetic and personable 36-year-old,
who was general manager at Chiapparelli's
in Little Italy before this.
You'll meet him if you do what we
did: order the family-style dinner for
$30 a person. As far as I'm concerned,
this is the way to go at Sammy's -- as
long as you're very hungry.
The waitress brought Curreri to
our table to talk about what we
might want. We asked for his advice.
The first thing he said was, "Stop
with the bread."
This wasn't easy because it was
very good bread, chewy and flavorful,
with a fruity olive oil for dipping.
But if you're smart, you'll do exactly
that. Sammy's specializes in traditional
southern Italian food, hearty
and filling. But even by Little Italy
standards, the family-style dinner
involves enormous amounts of food.
We took home enough pasta and
meat to feed the four of us the next
night. It's not a chef's tasting menu,
as our waitress warned us.
Everything we had is on the regular
menu but came on platters to
share: three appetizers, two salads,
two pastas, two entrees and three
desserts. (The plates of pasta arrived
with the meat and fish.) You can put
yourself in Curreri's hands when ordering,
which we essentially did, but
I wished afterward that we had given
him a bit more guidance.
I could easily have made a dinner
on two of the appetizers. In fact, we
almost did, so we were flagging by
the time we got to the main courses.
The base of the shrimp bruschetta
was excellent grilled bread, warm,
chewy and fragrant with olive oil.
The contrast with the chilled,
chopped topping of shrimp, tomatoes,
olives, capers and shavings of
parmigiana made it hard to resist,
and we didn't.
The antipasti freddi was as lovely
as it was delicious, a colorful spread
of fresh mozzarella, red summer
tomatoes and enormous fresh basil
leaves with capers and olives on a
white plate. I was less excited about
our third appetizer, very garlicky
broccoli rabe cooked with Italian
sausage.
Two house salads to share came
next, which for some reason didn't
have the promised creamy house
dressing that evening but an ordinary
vinaigrette. We pretty much ignored
them.
What I would have done differently
was ask for a little more variety
among our four main platters. Each
was good on its own, but they
seemed a little repetitious. I also
would have included more vegetables,
but that's just me. When Curreri
asked us what we liked, my
guests volunteered seafood, veal and
chicken. I threw in pasta -- pastas
are made at Sammy's daily, along
with soups, stocks and meatballs. I
should have been even more specific:
The duck ravioli with spinach in
a butter sauce sounded great.
Not that there was anything wrong
with what we got. Fat, flat pappardelle
had a wonderful texture,
emphasized by the smooth pesto and
pine nuts they were tossed with. The
equally good penne stood up well to
its intensely flavorful Bolognese
sauce, slow-simmered and meaty.
Chicken or veal? Curreri didn't
make us choose. He arranged boneless
chicken breasts and veal cutlets
on one platter and sauced them with
lemon, butter, Kalamata olives and
capers. Because of that, I would have
chosen a different sauce for the golden-
crusted flounder fillet, as fresh as
it was delicate -- other than lemon,
butter, olives and capers -- but if
you're ordering it alone, I highly recommend
it.
The waitress could probably tell we
weren't going to make it through
four whole desserts, so she brought
three. We picked at an artery-clogging
chocolate pudding cake and a
pleasantly oozy tiramisu. The only
dessert that makes sense after a
meal like this is the gelato: three
fruity scoops (mango, raspberry and
lemon) served in a wineglass.
Sammy's was busy, so we were willing
to cut our waitress a little slack
when she wasn't as attentive as we
felt she should have been. But I did
raise an eyebrow when she sat down
at another table to chat with the
good-looking guy eating there. It was
clearly someone she had known before.
Apart from that, dinner at Sammy's
was a lot of fun. With luck,
southern Italian food and a warmhearted,
attentive owner will be
enough of a draw to let Sammy's
Trattoria succeed where others have
failed.
---------------------------
elizabeth.large@baltsun.com
---------------------------
Ratings:
Food: ***
Service: **1/2
Atmosphere: ***
Rating system: Outstanding: ****; Good ***; Fair or uneven **; Poor
*
By Elizabeth Large
Sun Restaurant Critic
Originally published on July 2, 2006
A friend who eats with me regularly
has a conspiracy theory about
restaurants that keep opening and
closing in one location. He thinks the
way to succeed in the business
would be to get a long-term lease
and every two or three years close
down and reopen with a new name,
new concept and new staff. That's
about the length of time it takes for
a hot new restaurant to become yesterday's
news. If things aren't going
well, you can close down and reopen
after six months, like a Broadway
show.
I absolutely do not believe this is
what's happening at 1200 N. Charles.
It just feels that way with the opening
of Sammy's Trattoria where Limoges,
a French bistro, and before it
Tampico, a Mexican restaurant, was.
Sammy is owner Sam Curreri, an
energetic and personable 36-year-old,
who was general manager at Chiapparelli's
in Little Italy before this.
You'll meet him if you do what we
did: order the family-style dinner for
$30 a person. As far as I'm concerned,
this is the way to go at Sammy's -- as
long as you're very hungry.
The waitress brought Curreri to
our table to talk about what we
might want. We asked for his advice.
The first thing he said was, "Stop
with the bread."
This wasn't easy because it was
very good bread, chewy and flavorful,
with a fruity olive oil for dipping.
But if you're smart, you'll do exactly
that. Sammy's specializes in traditional
southern Italian food, hearty
and filling. But even by Little Italy
standards, the family-style dinner
involves enormous amounts of food.
We took home enough pasta and
meat to feed the four of us the next
night. It's not a chef's tasting menu,
as our waitress warned us.
Everything we had is on the regular
menu but came on platters to
share: three appetizers, two salads,
two pastas, two entrees and three
desserts. (The plates of pasta arrived
with the meat and fish.) You can put
yourself in Curreri's hands when ordering,
which we essentially did, but
I wished afterward that we had given
him a bit more guidance.
I could easily have made a dinner
on two of the appetizers. In fact, we
almost did, so we were flagging by
the time we got to the main courses.
The base of the shrimp bruschetta
was excellent grilled bread, warm,
chewy and fragrant with olive oil.
The contrast with the chilled,
chopped topping of shrimp, tomatoes,
olives, capers and shavings of
parmigiana made it hard to resist,
and we didn't.
The antipasti freddi was as lovely
as it was delicious, a colorful spread
of fresh mozzarella, red summer
tomatoes and enormous fresh basil
leaves with capers and olives on a
white plate. I was less excited about
our third appetizer, very garlicky
broccoli rabe cooked with Italian
sausage.
Two house salads to share came
next, which for some reason didn't
have the promised creamy house
dressing that evening but an ordinary
vinaigrette. We pretty much ignored
them.
What I would have done differently
was ask for a little more variety
among our four main platters. Each
was good on its own, but they
seemed a little repetitious. I also
would have included more vegetables,
but that's just me. When Curreri
asked us what we liked, my
guests volunteered seafood, veal and
chicken. I threw in pasta -- pastas
are made at Sammy's daily, along
with soups, stocks and meatballs. I
should have been even more specific:
The duck ravioli with spinach in
a butter sauce sounded great.
Not that there was anything wrong
with what we got. Fat, flat pappardelle
had a wonderful texture,
emphasized by the smooth pesto and
pine nuts they were tossed with. The
equally good penne stood up well to
its intensely flavorful Bolognese
sauce, slow-simmered and meaty.
Chicken or veal? Curreri didn't
make us choose. He arranged boneless
chicken breasts and veal cutlets
on one platter and sauced them with
lemon, butter, Kalamata olives and
capers. Because of that, I would have
chosen a different sauce for the golden-
crusted flounder fillet, as fresh as
it was delicate -- other than lemon,
butter, olives and capers -- but if
you're ordering it alone, I highly recommend
it.
The waitress could probably tell we
weren't going to make it through
four whole desserts, so she brought
three. We picked at an artery-clogging
chocolate pudding cake and a
pleasantly oozy tiramisu. The only
dessert that makes sense after a
meal like this is the gelato: three
fruity scoops (mango, raspberry and
lemon) served in a wineglass.
Sammy's was busy, so we were willing
to cut our waitress a little slack
when she wasn't as attentive as we
felt she should have been. But I did
raise an eyebrow when she sat down
at another table to chat with the
good-looking guy eating there. It was
clearly someone she had known before.
Apart from that, dinner at Sammy's
was a lot of fun. With luck,
southern Italian food and a warmhearted,
attentive owner will be
enough of a draw to let Sammy's
Trattoria succeed where others have
failed.
---------------------------
elizabeth.large@baltsun.com
---------------------------
Ratings:
Food: ***
Service: **1/2
Atmosphere: ***
Rating system: Outstanding: ****; Good ***; Fair or uneven **; Poor
*
