Centro

Central Square gets a charming bistro
with a powerhouse chef

Dining Out by Robert Nadeau

DINING OUT

Centro (617) 868-2405 720 Mass Ave (Central Square), Cambridge (enter through the Good Life) Open Mon-Thurs, 5:30 -10 p.m.; Fri-Sat, 5:30-11 p.m.; and Sun, 4:30 -10 p.m. MC, Visa Full bar No valet parking Sidewalk-level access, but presently through crowded dining room

Centro is a brilliant little restaurant with an uncertain future. For the moment, you have the neoclassical Mediterranean food

of chef Rene Michelena (ex-La Bettola) in an informal 10-table bistro that absolutely suits the neighborhood. You can afford it, and you can still get in. Especially on weeknights, diners share a sense of discovery that I can compare only to what people feel for certain extended jazz engagements and the scene that develops around them. To walk in at 6 or 10 p.m. and pick up a menu is to feel part of something wonderful that probably won't last a year, but will be talked about for a long time to come.

The background story is that chef Michelena has teamed up with restaurateur Brian O'Neill -- owner of the Good Life franchise and the newly reopened St. Botolph restaurant -- and ordinarily I would be checking up for improved bar food the way I monitored the influence of Jasper White on Legal Sea Foods. But unlike Jasper White, who essentially took a desk job at Legal's, Michelena is keeping up his chops at the small Centro while reviving St. Botolph with O'Neill. Sort of like the Rolling Stones doing a few club dates under an assumed name while recording a new album.

I call Michelena's food neoclassical because he follows classic forms while working with relatively few ingredients. Balancing flavors is crucial, and difficult, since many of the usual safety nets -- sauces, herbal crusts, flavored reductions or oils -- are sparse. And it is, you know, wintertime.

For example, the bread was a Tuscan-style loaf, crusty outside, soft within. It came with a little ramekin of spread. On three visits this consisted of celery-root purče, white-bean purče, and white-bean purče with a lot of garlic. Only the last was familiar, and all three were delicious.

A special pumpkin soup ($8) supported the basic purče with a meaty rabbit stock. And the garnishes of cured rabbit-meat "confit," crispy skin cracklings, and fried fresh sage leaves gave the diner a lot of options with each spoonful. Most chefs in Boston would use a lot more pepper, herbs, spices, or wine in a soup of this kind.

Bruschetta ($5) was a single thin toast, spread with mild goat cheese and maybe a wisp of garlic, chunks of mushroom, and grape tomatoes -- the only tomatoes worth eating in December. The plate also featured a lively arugula salad. Again, one usually doesnsee bruschetta in the winter without pepper, basil, oregano, onion, and more.

All the pastas I tried on each of the three visits were similarly focused on the basics. Garlic gnocchi (half-portion $8, full $15) were airy and starchy at once. The tomato sauce was sound but sparse, as was some melted cheese. Capellini with rock-shrimp meatballs and "pesto dolce" ($8, $15) was just so. The capellini was al dente, a considerable trick with this ultrathin spaghetti shape, and four shrimp balls were delightfully fresh and sweet. The pesto wasn't a paste, but a sauce of sautčed fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes. A pasta special on fettuccine ($18) had the same al dente perfection in another difficult shape, thinner and flatter than dried fettuccine. Again the sauce -- tomato with some homemade sausage -- had me wishing for just a little more.

Of the full entrčes, you shouldn't miss the halibut ($16), a glorious and fluffy piece of white fish on a bed of sautčed leeks and wild mushrooms with a dark and savory sauce. Sirloin florentine ($19) was an excellent bone-in steak, cooked medium-rare to order, but notable for the diced root vegetables gilded with sweet and sour marinades. A special duckling ($19) featured the sliced breast on top of a few cabbage rolls stuffed with rice and homemade duck sausage. The breast slices were rare inside and crispy on the edges, but the rolls were the only "over-cheffed" dish I had at Centro. The rice and sausage were too lean to hold together, and the cabbage leaves were undercooked, according to my ethnic standard.

You may often want a side vegetable ($4). Word is good about the soft polenta, but my attempt to order it went unheeded, a rare service lapse. Escarole came as a whole head, browned with onions, a splendid source of roughage.

The wine-and-drink list comes from the '50s-themed Good Life, so you can have martinis, a glass of $5.25 merlot as soft as prune juice, some pretty good bottles, or -- my choice -- Italian spring water, still or bubbly, for $4.50 a bottle. The ice water is frequently refilled, and just fine. Decaffeinated coffee ($1.75) is quite decent, and tea service is excellent: loose Irish breakfast, Earl Grey, or linden leaf brewed in a china pot.

Desserts are terrific, and as reasonably priced as the crËme caramel ($4), which was slightly herbal and one of the lightest versions on record, decorated with candied pistachios. Assorted cookies and biscotti ($4) on my night featured a single, pluperfect biscotto, some buttery cookies, and a brownie. Warm chocolate cake ($7) was the flourless kind, but somehow treated to produce a brownie-like crust, and was just excellent with homemade chocolate ice cream. This was enormous the first time I ordered it, but had been reduced to normal by a later visit. Rustic fruit crostata ($5) was an open, free-form apple tart with vanilla ice cream.

The room is nice, but not special. Management got the message about the drafty single front door, and switched to entry through the Good Life. Despite a constant stream of '50s jazz (Dixieland to bop), and probably the live music on weekends, Centro isn't too loud. It is, however, a little too dark. If I were a chef this good, I would want people to see what color the food is.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.

---

The Dining Out archive

---