Juliana Theory

New from the owners of Radicchio, Bistro Juliana isn't packed ... yet.

by Elisa Ludwig

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Published: Jul 18, 2007

WHAT SHE EIGHT: Bistro Juliana's multitextured octopus salad, tossed with ceci beans, celery, red onion, garlic, tomato and capers. Photo By: Michael T. Regan (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

It hasn't been open long, but already there's a bench outside Fishtown's Bistro Juliana anticipating future crowds lining up under its red awning. It's an optimistic gesture, but then, when you consider that this neat little box of a BYO comes from Luigi Basile and Massimo Coscia, it makes sense. These guys opened Radicchio, after all, so they know how to fill a dining room � and most of the sidewalk outside it.

Inside Juliana, it's a minimal affair, with white walls, black-framed artwork, mirrored sconces and a shiny open kitchen throwing light and heat and spaghetti. Our servers were expert, arriving with timely offers to pour our wine into jumbo-size glasses and read off the day's specials. The breadbasket, only partially full of oven-warmed strips of pitalike flatbread, at first seemed a little skimpy for a table of four, but we were later given a refill. So that's not even a full complaint � it's an almost-complaint that was corrected.

Though the menu is quite different, the style of food will be familiar to fans of Raddichio's clean, understated cooking. A lemon-dressed octopus salad is a multihued, multitextured wonder: The little cephalopods are heat-crisped but uniformly tender, simply tossed with chewy ceci beans (the cuter name for chickpeas), crunchy celery and slivers of red onion, lightly sautéed slices of garlic, bursting grape-tomato halves and tiny puckered capers.

Focaccia Caprese is a traditional salad made even better � as most things are � with the addition of dough. A thin but fluffy round of bread is adorned with curling folds of translucent prosciutto, sliced tomatoes, formidable wedges of milky buffalo mozzarella and ribbons of basil, then drizzled with olive oil. It falls somewhere between a delicious open-faced sandwich and a room-temp pizza.

A standard-issue beet salad with crumbled goat cheese and caramelized walnuts is exceptionally fresh, subtly seasoned and beautifully presented, the intermingling red and yellow slices of beet bright as flowers.

And yes, the pasta. Orecchiette, whole-wheat ear-shaped scoops of pasta, are the perfect vessels for garlicky shrimp, melty cannellini beans and feathery strands of spinach. You'll get a spoon for sipping the hot-pepper-flecked sauce, creamy and souplike from the cannelloni starch, and you will be grateful for this implement.

The kitchen has a knack for seafood dishes that seem so simple as to have come out of the ocean on a platter, like spaghetti tossed with pearly-white chunks of lump crab, arugula, slices of garlic and diced fresh tomatoes. The sweet crab is the flashy movie star that the other elements humbly support, like underpaid but overly talented character actors.

Then there's the house fish of the day. We tried the branzino, which came whole in its shimmery skin and was filleted at the table by the server who was also responsible for our tiramisu (more on that later). The delicate white bass is baked with white wine, lemon and garlic, but it has the elemental goodness of a meal that a fisherman just dropped off in the kitchen of a seaside village restaurant in, say, Paros, Greece. Yet wouldn't you know it, here you are, on the corner of Cumberland and Salmon.

Steak becomes delicate, too, in the form of straccetti, thin slices of filet mignon in a slightly viscous white wine and garlic sauce with wilted arugula. This dish, it should also be noted, comes with a bonus undocumented on the menu: toothsome half-spheres of potato gnocchi. Surprise gnocchi goes a long way to pleasing diners. In fact, this is a policy I would like to see adopted more widely around the city.

Even the chicken Milanese, an ordinary dish by most standards, is a winner. A breaded cutlet the thickness of an alternative weekly is buried in a wild mound of arugula, slightly pale but vibrant-tasting tomatoes and parmesan shavings, the fresh salad topping aptly counterbalancing the fried base of the dish.

As mentioned earlier, tiramisu, served in a parfait glass, is made here. In this rather vertical presentation, you have to dig deep to capture the cocoa-dusted whipped cream as well as the custard and espresso- and rum-soaked ladyfingers below, though eating it layer by layer is another approach.

Other desserts come from the mother ship Radicchio. A circle of crumbly chocolate cake is layered with airy chocolate mousse and whipped cream beaded with tiny chocolate and white chocolate shavings. "Créme brülée" is more like a tart with a terrifically thick, buttery brown crust supporting the custard. Its surface is indeed browned, but lacks the satisfying sugar shatter of the classic version. No matter � this is pretty damn satisfying in its own right.

Already, Bistro Juliana is just as good as � if not better than � Radicchio. If my experience was any indication, that bench outside will soon be well worn.

(e_ludwig@citypaper.net)

Bistro Juliana

2723 E. Cumberland St.215-425-2501Hours: Tue.-Sun., lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., dinner 4:30-10 p.m.; closed Monday.Appetizers, $5-$10. Entrees, $12-$20.BYOB.

 

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