FLASHBACK 1995: Ted Scheffler dines at the Tavola
Like a Box of Chocolates
By Ted Scheffler @critic1
In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.
Title: Like a Box of Chocolates
Author: Ted Scheffler
Date: May 25, 1995
Those who remember the now-defunct Anthony's, formerly located at the Carriage House in the Triad Center, won't recognize it in the new Tavola restaurant that now occupies that prime piece of Salt Lake real estate. Tavola's owners have done a tremendous job in turning the Carriage House into one of the city's more attractive dining venues. Marble tabletops and floors work in concert with rich dark wood ceilings and walls to create a sense of contemporary comfort and warmth at Tavola that few restaurants succeed in achieving. Particularly unique are the often witty and sometimes insightful quotes of famous and not-so-famous personalities that are stenciled onto Tavola's walls. Add to this visually enticing landscape the auditory delicacy of jazz wafting through the dining areas and you have a truly appealing place in which to sup.
Regrettably, though, the food and service at Tavola are so uneven that neither are ultimately worthy of the restaurant's aforementioned charms. To paraphrase the famous Gumpism, "Like a box of chocolates, you never know what you'll get." A radio spot for Tavola promises a "bold" approach to Italian cooking, but where is the boldness in minestrone soup; a lasagna of sausage, beef, cheese and tomato sauce; a focaccia with mozzarella and fontina cheeses; or a calzone of ricotta, sausage, mozzarella, tomato and pancetta? Not that there's anything wrong with any of these menu items, but bold is certainly not the way I'd describe them.
Bold doesn't describe the flavors of Tavola's dishes either. What should have been a very fresh, simple-tasting dish, for example—linguine with homemade tomato sauce and fresh basil—was made with underripe tomatoes and tasted more of salt than anything. The Agnolotti Rosso, half-moon shaped pasta pillows stuffed with chicken and served with a Cajun spiced cream sauce, was a better choice, and bolder.
A good value at Tavola is the Platto Misto del Giorno, a cold appetizer assortment that includes calamari, shrimp, green-lip mussels, baby clams, mozzarella and tomatoes, artichoke hearts, prosciutto, provolone, salami and pasta salad, all for only $7.95. This platter made a good start to a recent dinner at Tavola, but unfortunately things went seriously downhill from there.
Having been served lunch by a cordial, if tentative, waitress a couple of days before, we were now greeted for dinner by a waiter who immediately proclaimed that "he was the best waiter we'd ever have." Following his recommendation to order the special 16 oz. veal chop, which was, he told us, "incredible," and the pork chops with balsamic vinegar and rosemary ("amazing," he said), we sat back in eager anticipation of our incredibly amazing dinner.
The half-hour wait for our entrees, in a restaurant with only four tables occupied with customers, made me suspicious of what acts were being committed to our veal and pork chops. As it turned out, they were being savagely overcooked. Both arrived nicely flavored, but dry and overdone. It occurred to me after the fact that our waiter hadn't even asked how we'd like these pieces of meat cooked. At any rate, well-done certainly wouldn't have been the choice.
Twenty minutes after we finished our meals, our fabulous waiter still hadn't checked in to offer dessert or a check. "You were talking, so I left you alone," was his reasoning. Once we obtained the bill, our self-proclaimed best waiter disappeared for good, and I had to flag down one of his colleagues in order to pay our tab. We never did see our wonderful waiter again and I suspect he's moved on to bigger and better things. For that matter, once the bill was paid, we never heard from anyone again—no "How was everything?" or "Thanks, hope to see you again," nothing. A quotation by Isadora Duncan on one of Tavola's walls pretty well sums up the Tavola service experience, "Astounding what I feel when you are not here."
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