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Gallia
A flavor explosion that owes more to the modern Mediterranean than ancient Gaul
BY ROBERT NADEAU

 Gallia
(617) 247-4455
1525 Washington Street (South End), Boston
Open Mon–Thu, 5:30–10 p.m.; and Fri–Sat, 5:30–10:30 p.m.
AE, CB, DC, MC, Vi
Full bar
No valet parking
Access up two steps to yellow dining room; one step up to red dining room

Gallia wants to invoke the region conquered by Julius Caesar in 51 BC, but the food is more modern Mediterranean than Franco-German. Chef Stefano Zimei has worked at all kinds of restaurants, but his cooking here is shaped above all by his most recent experience at the Federalist. That super-luxe room has organized its menu around unusual produce, and Zimei puts several such items onto every plate at Gallia. This style is a strength when the combinations harmonize, but a few platters are off-balance, or so cluttered that flavors clash. Given that Gallia is considerably less expensive than the Federalist, and that there are more hits than misses, adventurous diners will be all over this menu, and the less adventurous will settle on a few dishes.

Things begin well south of Gaul with a plate of small olives marinated in very fruity olive oil. The bread basket is filled with chunks of crusty peasant bread to dip in the olive oil, and little focaccia with tomato as a kind of pre-appetizer. Zimei’s real appetizers are vertical. A harmonic convergence of flavor is achieved with the " softshell crab watermelon sea beans avocado lemon viniagrette [sic] " ($11), where the delicate fried crabs get just the right lemon reinforcement, and the underlying green salad gets one contrast from cubes of ripe watermelon and another from the jade-green beans. Green-olive risotto with pan-roasted calamari ($14) comes close. The rice is a little crunchier than I like it, but the green flavors of olive, cilantro, and fresh peas are all there, and the seafood is refreshingly simple and scrumptious in contrast.

I also liked a salad of field greens ($9), touched up with bits of smokehouse bacon, a very creamy sheep cheese, and a rich dressing. But a dish of sweetbreads contains so many ingredients that most get lost, even though the sweetbreads themselves are very mild in flavor. A slice of fried ham holds up. However, sautéed ramps, which are garlicky wild onions, lose most of their flavor in the kitchen. A garnish of chervil, a subtle herb, is lost in a strong brown gravy, and so are some slices of ... artichoke heart? Pear? You see the problem?

No such problem with the grilled Colorado lamb ($21), exquisite slices of full-flavored meat, set off perfectly by bitter greens, with an intriguing " polenta " that tastes of corn, but has the texture of whipped potatoes. Halibut ($21) is done so vertically it looks like an individual birthday cake: sitting on top of the cake-looking white fish is a red-and-green salad (radishes, greens, pickled onion) that resembles cake decoration. The foundation supporting this edifice is a whip of celery root and potato that’s as soft as bath bubbles, with a raft of green beans. These flavors don’t all come together, but they all work.

Grilled daurade ($24) is a near-miss. The French word applies to a group of sea breams related to our porgies, wolf fish, and tautog. With this chef, it was unclear if we had imported daurade, or a local cousin under the French name. The waiter knew only that it was a " white fish with a good flake. " The problem was that the chef grilled it, skin on, and then added cumin, which brought out the fishy aroma. The fish was actually more delicious as a cold leftover, denuded of the skin and eaten with the thin slices of sweet Meyer lemon picked off the skin’s other side. Cold, " daurade " is a bass-like fish with fine flavor and a hint of richness. If supplies hold, I suggest recasting the dish without the cumin as part of a cold appetizer.

" Hand-cut ziti Bolognese broccoli rabe rosemary juniper parmegiano reggiano " ($18) sounds like a lot of ingredients for a plate of pasta and meat sauce, but the dish’s only real problem is one of balance. The idea must have been that juniper would add a gamy quality to the meat, but with the rosemary and a lot of salt, this sauce ends up piney and granular, and the hand-cut ziti aren’t much better than pasta out of the box. This dish has one advantage — it is larger and more filling than other entrées. But cut down the juniper, and try it with homemade fettuccini.

The wine list, which isn’t long, concentrates in the $24-to-$48 range, with 18 glasses from $6 to $10. The ’99 Trinchero merlot ($8 glass/$35 bottle) is an exciting red wine, full of brambly fruit flavors. Maybe California is where merlot is going, given the outrageous recent prices of Saint-Emilion Bordeaux using the same grape. The 1999 Fuentespina tempranillo ($7) is made like the more-usual California merlot, soft, with maybe a slightly darker fruit. On the white side, the 2000 Patient Cottat Sancerre ($10/$48) is spritzy, yet clean and elegant. The 2001 Famerga vinho verde ($6/$24) is listed with " France, " although vinho verde is the Portuguese term for a light white from Portugal. Yet this wine actually tastes like it was made in France, with the crispness and body of a chardonnay, so it’s a best buy. The coffee and espresso are " Illy, " an Italian roaster. They make a good decaf ($2.75). The tea is " Numi, " blended by an Iraqi-American family in Oakland, California. Their chamomile-lemon-myrtle ($2.75) is like some of the food at Gallia — one flavor too many. Tea is served adequately with a bag and a china pot of hot water that nests over a large cup. If you stick the bar promptly in the pot, you’ll brew tea.

Dessert is the only really chancy course at Gallia, batting .500. The winners are the " rich milk-chocolate pot de crème " ($7.50), which is all of that with an intense chocolate flavor, and the " spring sorbet trio " ($7.50) — a wonderful buttermilk sorbet, a very fresh and ripe-tasting strawberry, and a solid raspberry, topped with a biscotto busy with apricots and pistachios. But I wasn’t gaga over the " toasted-almond galette " ($7.50). To me, a galette is a waffle or pancake, but this is a dull almond Danish, topped with rich ice cream sprinkled with toasted almonds. Chocolate-pistachio cake ($7.50) is another case of flavors canceling each other out, although these two usually work well together. It’s dark, it’s chewy, it looks like a giant double Oreo. But in the end, there isn’t much chocolate, and there isn’t much pistachio.

Service at Gallia is pleasant, but our server wasn’t quite up to speed on all the exotic ingredients and was slow to serve the second glass of wine. The management has intelligently put salt and pepper mills on each table, saving a whole round of " Would you like ground pepper on your pasta/salad/ice cream/bald spot? " They get another point for the rosemary-scented hand soap in the bathrooms. But their background music is several odd kinds of techno, with Cuban mambo a little later. It’s mostly inaudible, because this is a big, loud room with ragged yellow walls (or red walls in the alternate dining room), oak floors, and large windows. The windows look out onto Blackstone Park, now nicely groomed and surrounded by a spiked iron fence. That reminded me of my first visit to this address on behalf of this paper, back in 1972, when all the windows had been broken by Puerto Rican rioters in protest against alleged discrimination by the corner pharmacy. Ten years later, the park was used in the opening credits of St. Elsewhere. A lot has changed in 20 years. The South End is a very different place. The building has a new tenant, the paper has another name, and I have a different pseudonym and a different assignment. Something to muse over with dessert, especially that sorbet.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com

Issue Date: June 6-13, 2002
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