November 6, 2002

A long row to hoe

By Paul Reidinger

ITALIAN (AN Italian-speaking friend once assured me) is a language from which virtually all hard-to-pronounce words have been rinsed away by time. Apparently he forgot, or had never heard, the word "vogalonga," which has something of a South Pacific island ring and in its Germanic crunching together of smaller words (it means "long row") sets one thinking about little Fiats piling up on some foggy autostrada.

The long row in question is a regatta held annually in Venice since 1974. And indeed Vogalonga, a Mission trattoria that recently opened in the old La Villa Poppi space, sports the outline of a gondola, and a gondolier, in its front window. That is about the extent of the restaurant's references to the Venetian vogalonga and, really, to Venice itself.

No matter, for Vogalonga is a worthy successor to the deeply worthy La Villa Poppi, which folded when its chef-proprietor, Greg Sweeting, moved to Portland, Ore. Eating at La Villa Poppi was one of the truly intimate dining experiences in the city; the place was (and remains) tiny, and with Sweeting alone in the kitchen and his lady friend working the front of the house by herself, you very much had the sense of being at a dinner party in someone's house.

Vogalonga, by contrast, is more conventionally staffed, with at least two people in the kitchen, a server or two on the floor, and the host, keeping watch over the whole operation. (More on his vigil forthwith.) Gone too is La Villa Poppi's rustic-Tuscan decor (which always reminded me of the rills and beads of melted wax you find at the bottom of half-burned candles) in favor of a timeless scheme – clay and sand tones above a flagstone floor the color of a stormy winter sea – that will seem familiar to anyone on holiday who's ever popped in and out of the innumerable trattorias on Rome's innumerable (and narrow) side streets. (It is clear, incidentally, that Romans expect Americans to stick to the well-lit thoroughfares at night; boulevard menus tend to be in English and twice as pricey as those at places a short block or two away down a dim alley of the sort Americans, having seen Ghost, expect to be filled with nefarious murderers.)

The food is honest and unaffected in a way that does credit to the name "trattoria." As in Italy, the troublesome eggplant is handled artfully, whether rolled involtini-style ($5.95) around mozzarella and goat cheese – involtini is typically a rolled-veal dish – or baked in a crock à la parmigiana ($10.95) with an herbed tomato sauce and plenty of mozzarella cheese on top.

Pizzas are splendid and contribute to a renaissance of good pizza (though not pizzeria pizza) to be had in the city these days. It is hard to (sorry!) top a good pizza margherita ($8), and Vogalonga's – sliced tomatoes, shreds of fresh basil, and some (but not too much) mozzarella atop a thin, crisp crust that isn't dry (a balance not unlike that of the perfect french fry) – is about as good as it gets. And the pizza boscaiola ($8.95), topped with sliced mushrooms and flecks of oregano, isn't far behind.

We loved a seafood soup ($7.95), a kind of Italian-style bouillabaisse, with salmon, shrimp, clams, and mussels afrolic in a spicy tomato broth. And chicken cacciatore ($12.95), though slightly inauthentic in substituting a paillard (a boneless breast, pounded thin, and sautéed) instead of whole pieces, pan-roasted, did honor the name "cacciatore" ("hunter") by offering a spectacular shower of late-summer bounty, including julienne peppers of red and gold, chunks of zucchini, artichoke hearts, black olives, cauliflower florets, and bits of carrot.

At last, having established that Vogalonga successfully succeeds La Villa Poppi in almost every respect, I reach more serious matters – "matters of interest," as we say now in these terror-infected times. On our last visit I ordered lasagna (al forno, $10.95), and it never came. Do not weep for me: I went home and ate an ice-cream sandwich. And I had started with the seafood soup, which was large enough to pass as a small main dish.

But still. I love lasagna. I love, even more, being served what I have ordered. To the server's credit, she apologized for not writing down the lasagna on her order pad ("I didn't hear you say that," she said), and she didn't charge us for it. Neither, alas, did she offer to expedite the order, nor bring some other dish that could be quickly prepared. No glass of comp wine or dessert; no coupon for a free dinner; nothing.

Perhaps the host would ride to my rescue? There he stood, hovering over the cash register – from which he never lifted his eyes. Clearly our poor server had no plans to report the fuckup. Nonetheless, one supposed, one hoped, that an alert supervisor would notice a miscue on the floor, particularly when there is as little floor to keep track of as there is in Vogalonga.