I feel like each of the last few reviews I've done has started with an apology for posting so infrequently. I'm sure you're all feeling the pinch in one way or another. Since a man has to eat, we've been out, but mostly to places we know and appreciate. It has become difficult to gamble money on the untested, especially after getting the last quarterly mailing for my 403B.
We've been driving by Nessa on the way home from Costco for quite some time now and we decided the positive reviews earned them a spot in our new restaurant queue. Nessa is located on the tail end of Main Street in Port Chester. They have valet parking, but we got very lucky with a spot across the street.
Our evening began on a low note. We had a reservation and the room was practically empty, but the hostess decided to seat Chrissie and me between the kitchen and an open door. After politely asking for a better table she sat us behind the hostess station. In their slight defense (I do mean slight), the dining room was completely filled by the time we left, but you should never seat a couple with a reservation in the worst seats of an empty dining room. I told Chrissie to not let the hostess taint my opinion of the restaurant and we ordered drinks from a friendly waitress.
The friendly waitress failed to mention that the house Chardonnay Chrissie ordered was a $17 glass of wine. There has to be a fail safe mechanism for drinkers. When we eat out and I order a Tanqueray and Chrissie orders a glass of wine I expect to pay around ten dollars, give or take, for mine and a little less for Chrissie's. To charge seventeen dollars for a standard wine order is to take advantage of a customer who trusts the house bottles are chosen for both drinking characteristics and for price.
We didn't yet know about the entree priced glass of wine when the waitress returned to explain that the chef requests all orders be complete before submission. She also told us that there were no substitutions allowed. I asked about specials and she said there were none because the chef wants to put out his best and most consistent work. I can understand this. I really can. The back of the house in a popular restaurant is chaotic and succeeds or fails on the delicate balance between artistic endeavor and scientific timing. We put in a complete order that began with bruschetta, appetizers, and entrees.
Our thinking was, after the emphatic speech from the friendly waitress, that the meal would be properly paced. We thought that was why the chef took such pains to train the waitstaff to articulate his culinary philosophy. It came as a great shock to me when the bruschetta and the appetizers were brought to the table at the same time. More surprising was that I had to ask for our bottle of wine, even though both of us had finished our cocktails long before the table topping presentation of plates had arrived.
The bruschetta were fine. They would have been better as a pre-appetizer as the waitress promised when she told us we had to order complete meals. Chrissie ordered the salmon and I had the prosciutto with figs. I actually liked Chrissie's more. It tasted very fresh and fishy. She thought it was too acidic and the salmon was lost in the mix. She thought mine was a nice mix of sweet and savory. I thought it was too busy. Had these come out before our appetizers I would have written that we should have switched plates, but the sense of urgency placed on us by the delivery of four simultaneous plates ruined my appreciation of these dishes.
Chrissie ordered the beef carpaccio. The meat was fine. We both thought too much was going on in the dish. Served with marinated artichokes, the beef gets lost. I imagine it being an excellent introductory dish for those afraid to try carpaccio. For the indoctrinated, the loss of beef focus turns the dish into a carnivore's salad. I ordered the grilled octopus, expecting a plate of grilled octopus. I was very disappointed when presented with a cold octopus salad. The octopus bordered between rubbery and grainy and were barely pleasurable to eat, and the dish itself, served in a giant bed of frisee, should have been labeled a salad and cut in price by a almost a third. In my opinion, price structure revolves around product cost, preparation cost, and profit. Going into entrees, the prep cook had done everything we'd eaten and fire had blessed nothing (I know Chrissie ordered a cold dish, but my chilled grilled octopus more than allows my statement).
Looking around the room between courses I began to understand what was happening. I almost felt bad for the chef. The diners weren't the ones we see in proven establishments, great dives, or in the fine dining restaurants we like to go to celebrate life's pleasures. They were the breed that follows the trend. Chrissie and I had a conversation about the blessings and the curses these people bring to a place. We spoke about the paid bills that are wonderful and we spoke about the attitude of owners and chefs that must certainly be born when an establishment gets picked before its time. It must be very difficult for them to not understand they are riding a wave and that these patrons will eventually leave them for whatever new restaurant the movers and shakers want to tell their friends they ate at. That leaves the people who love food and dining to fill a restaurant and if we are disappointed a room will not stay filled for long.
I was prepared for the entrees to disappoint and I was worried about what I would write. In almost a year I have never given a completely bad review. Chrissie's dish was a disappointment. Her stuffed eggplant was bland and boring. It was incredibly under salted and had no value except as a dish to appease unsuspecting vegetarians.
My dish; however, was one of the best plates of chicken I've ever had. It blew my mind how I could hate everything else about my meal and love the chicken so much that I think about going back for that one dish. This chicken was perfect. The skin was beautifully crisp, the meat was juicy and tender, the flavor profile was deep and balanced. The chicken at Nessa was a lifeboat in a sea of complacency.
Unfortunately, it was not enough to balance out the rest of the meal and we decided to skip desert, not because we were stuffed but because we didn't want to spend any more money there.
Highs
- The chicken "cooked under a brick" was a textbook application of how Italian bistro should be executed
Lows
- $17 for a glass of house Chardonnay
- An overly fussy philosophy and attitude that is backed by neither the kitchen nor the staff
- Sat us between the kitchen door and an open outside door when the dining room was empty
- The house mandated we order everything at once to accommodate the kitchen (no problem), but then they sent out four plates at once and forgot to bring out our bottle of wine (problem)
- Grilled octopus appetizer was a cold salad and not labeled as such
- Bland vegetable entree option
Will we go back? No. Not any time soon. We at A Man Has to Eat have always been about value, whether paying five or five hundred dollars for our meal. I found very little value to the dining experience at Nessa. In fact, I was disappointed by almost every aspect of my meal. The hostess, the waitress, and the kitchen all failed to live up to expectations. I'm amazed that they are a In Town Westchester Magazine editor's pick and that all of their other reviews are so flattering. Either my experience brought together the worst of all possible outcomes or people are giving this place a bye because they don't want to offend their neighbors who rave about it. With the exception of the wonderful chicken, I can think of nothing positive to write about our dinner there.
Nessa is located at:
325 North Main Street
Port Chester, New York 10573
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