Dinner At Cittanuova On Newtown Lane

By Dan Rattiner

Last Friday night, my wife and I had dinner at Cittanuova, the popular and sophisticated bistro restaurant on Newtown Lane in East Hampton. (Cittanuova is the Italian spelling of Newtown.)

Susan Galardi

The décor of this place is 21st century Rome, all zappy and high style with sliding glass doors, mahogany walls, tile floor, marble bar and countryside Italian tableware. The menus are in Italian, with English subtitles for those who do not speak that language, and the dishes are clever and tasty and quite reasonably priced. When you eat here, you could be forgiven if you were to think you were on the Via Condotti in Rome.

As we had a late and heavy lunch, we were not particularly hungry by 7 p.m., yet we wanted to have a salad and perhaps a half portion of an Italian dish. The choice of Cittanuova seemed inevitable, since they offer half portions of some of their dishes.

An attractive maitre de greeted us as we came in the front door. On this day, it was Sarah Palin, with her big winning smile. She had her hair swept up, those wire thin rectangular high fashion glasses, a pant suit and a silver sash that read MISS ALASKA on it. We were quite surprised.

"Two?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you," I said. "And good luck next Tuesday."

She led us past the bar, which was jammed with people watching sports on the three flat screens that are above and behind the bartender. One of the people at the bar was Popeye, the Sailor Man, with his corncob pipe, his flushed, pinched face and his protruding chin. He was talking with one of the local fishermen. Sarah brought us to a banquette at the end of the room, where you could sit side by side and watch the passing scene.

A waitress came by, gave us menus and asked if we'd like drinks.

Chris ordered a hot tea, which came in a glass. I ordered a grenadine and club soda, which is what I drink when I am not having a real drink. The bread waiter came by with a steel weave basket filled with cut up warm pieces of Italian bread, crusty on the outside, warm and moist on the inside. There was a glass compote dish with olive oil in it.

After awhile, Spiderman came over. He was a very little Spiderman, about three feet tall. He had on a mask and a red and blue Spiderman muscle suit with a black spiderweb on it. He stopped directly in front of our table and just looked up at us quizzically.

"Alfie, leave them alone," a man at the next table, sitting with a lovely woman, said to Spiderman gently. He turned and went back and sat down at his seat.

I ordered a vegetable soup and my wife ordered a minestrone soup. We thought both were a bit bland, so we asked for, and quickly got, some Parmesan cheese, which we sprinkled on the top.

A witch, with green cheeks, a long crooked nose and a black pointed hat and cape swept by the bar and went into the ladies room. Popeye, who seemed interested, pushed back his rubber Popeye mask to the top of his head. Now his corncob pipe faced the ceiling and his giant chin, which was cleft, sat on top of his head facing up, but now appeared as two enormous bull testicles. It was quite disconcerting. And I was not alone. A man at the bar next to Popeye reached up and squeezed one. We overheard snippets of conversation. Two people were talking about the Knicks game. Another was talking about the Texas Longhorns, who are playing Texas Tech on Saturday.

I went back to the soup.

More characters came by. One of them had wild, white hair and looked like Doc, from the movie Back to the Future. Another was Raggedy Anne, with bright red spots on her cheeks and a big flouncy dress.

The waitress came with our main courses. Chris had ordered papperdella wild boar and I had ordered garganelli alla bolognese, both pasta dishes. At half order each, they were just $16. But I think the chef, proud of himself, really gave us nearly full orders. We each sampled the other's. Both were well spiced and very different one from the other. They were the work of a skilled chef.

Truly full, we passed on dessert, and asked for the check, which was all of $48.88. On the way to the front door and the maitre de, I wondered if the restaurant had individual little mints in foil for departing diners to enjoy. Well, Ms. Palin had a little dish of candy corn. You don't usually see candy corn at restaurants. Maybe it's some new Italian thing. Or a Joe Sixpack thing.

Going out to the street, we passed somebody coming in dressed up to look like Alec Baldwin. It WAS Alec Baldwin. I think.

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