Crush Pad Fan posts Scusi Review…
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A new review from a Crush Pad fan, below. Here’s what he has to say about Scusci – a new wine bar, pizza joint in St Paul.
(By the way, I just took a look at the wine list. Looks like one distributor had their way with the wine list…hmmm.)
Scusi is Blue Plate Restaurant Company’s new offering in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood in St. Paul, located in the old Heartland space. Parking is conveniently located on the southwest corner of Fairview and St. Clair. We arrived approximately 25 minutes ahead of our 6:00 pm reservation on New Year’s Day, so we decided to get a glass of wine at the bar first.The bar side is absolutely charming. It’s cozy; there’s seating for 20 or so people. The bar itself is a beautiful marble, and there’s a terrific selection of wines by the glass. They’re using an impressive contraption to keep their open bottles fresh and the stemware is very nice; as a wine enthusiast this is appealing to me. It’s not Riedel, but it’s superior to what many other restaurants and wine bars offer in the Twin Cities area. At least four wines by the glass were discounted for happy hour, and one wine (Frog’s Leap Zinfandel – a very nice wine) was being served from a keg for $15/glass. True to form, my wife went with the $4 glass of Astoria Pino Nero and I went with the Frog’s Leap Zin. It’s important to note that a ‘glass’ is actually a ‘quartino’, an eight ounce pour. Not bad, right?
The restaurant side is one large room with an extremely open kitchen to the right as you walk in. There is a stack of plates in the middle of each table to facilitate the sharing of dishes. It’s not family-style, but small-plate style, and like Barrio the dishes are served as soon as they are ready. Our table for two was a bit cramped once all of our dishes arrived, but the table of four next to us seemed to have more room with which to work.
A complimentary housemade crispy flatbread or cracker with a white bean dip/spread was served while we waited for our dishes. The white bean spread was one of the best-tasting items we had all night; I had to restrain myself from licking clean the small cup in which it was served.
We split two salads, which arrived first. The Scusi salad was more or less what you would expect and sufficed just fine for $6. The Arugula Prosciutto was tasty; the crisp prosciutto was really quite delicious. The portions were appropriate for splitting; my wife and I could order just one salad in the future to start our meal and be quite content.
The Duck Risotto arrived when we were about midway through our salads, and the Margherita pizza shortly after that. The Risotto was really quite excellent; it’s something we’d order again and again. The texture was absolutely perfect, creamy and still slightly firm, and the figs really starred in this dish. Loved it. The pizza, sadly, fell quite short of even tempered expectations. The crust was was fine; thin and crispy on the outside but still chewy. The tomatoes, large leaves of basil, and garlic oil all provided a nice flavor. I think where it failed for me was with the mozzarella; it was just entirely bland and devoid of any character. My wife thinks it was the garlic oil threw things off balance, and I could see that being true for a lot of palates; a straight olive oil may be a better choice of ingredient.
We finished with a slice of chocolate cake served with a scoop of Izzy’s vanilla bean ice cream. Yum.
All things considered, we enjoyed our meal and will definitely return. There are several other dishes on the menu I’d like to try, and if nothing else it’s a great place to go and enjoy and glass of wine.