Walking up South Congress St., the hipster-cool area near downtown Austin, there’s a variety of interesting things to look at, including restaurants, shops, stands, and bums. Vespaio sits on the southern tip of SoCo and, walking south to get there, you ascend a small mountain - a tried and true way to rev up the appetite.

The building doesn’t suggest a four-star dining atmosphere, but much like the hipster Trastevere neighborhood in Rome, appearances can be deceiving. In Trastevere, bums sell beautiful and complex pieces of art, dirty churches house magnificently old interior structures, and plain exteriors open up to reveal sheik, upscale dining.

I went to Vespaio with my boyfriend on a Friday night for a special dinner date. The hostess, an endearing, short young woman, told us the wait would be about an hour - a blow, but not a knock-out punch.

We set off to walk around SoCo but decided to wait in the bar area. Crowded and loud, the bar area was full of diners, people unwilling to wait an hour to sit in the real dining area. Uncomfortable and exhausted from constant dodging and weaving, we guzzled down a martini and spied the antipasti dishes that surrounded us. The martini was average-to-good; the atmosphere was not.

Hungrier than fisherman at breakfast, we were finally seated, more or less knowing what we wanted.

The antipasti, a variety of olives and fried sardines, was a delight. The fresh sardines were lightly breaded and seasoned with Italian herbs, and a little too much oil. Nevertheless, they melted in my mouth, a simple but delicious start. The olives were overpriced and pitted. What kind of Italian restaurant serves only pitted olives?

The first plate was Linguini a la Vongole. Again, a very simple dish, one that can easily be ruined by chefs who try and complicate its stark simplicity. Head Chef and owner, Alan Lazarus, successfully withstood this temptation. The broth matched the lightness of the clams, and was wonderful to dip bread in.

The second plate, risotto made with truffle butter topped with grilled barbequed chicken, a combination that scared me. But did I really expect to turn down a risotto with truffle butter? I should have. The dish would have been better as a first plate. The richness overpowered the meal that I had just enjoyed, and although it tasted good, I could only take a couple of bites. It tasted like the risotto was cooked with a good amount of butter to go along with the truffle butter, not to mention the cream that a good risotto requires. The plate was still full when they took it away.

For wine, we ordered a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, a nice, young, Italian red that would accompany us through our meal without robbing us blind. Not terribly over-priced, the wine list looked fairly complete.

In the end, the dinner date was a success! We enjoyed the atmosphere, the food, the wine and the service. And while Vespaio isn’t close to my top-twenty list of restaurants in the country, it has arrived to my top-twenty in Austin. A great place to spend a special evening.

Vespaio
1610 S. Congress
Austin, TX
Tel (512) 441-6100
www.austinvespaio.com

- Reviewed by Angela North (angelalinnenorth@hotmail.com)