Good Eats	Perfect: Carmelo's Restaurant by Bridget Kelly

Blueberry Filet with a balsamic blueberry reduction, roasted red pepper & basil polenta cake. Rosted Beet Salad with fennel, toasted walnuts, goat cheese and grapefruit-tarragon dressing.

(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Ordering something at Carmelo’s was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Or, more precisely, I should say, ordering one thing and not ordering all the others. This menu is aglow with potential. Look around the crowded dining room, at all the happy diners; watch the trays of food carried past, each entree more perfect than the last; listen to the exclamations of delight from the next table, and then stare at the menu and decide which of these things you will not order.

The only consolation is that whatever you do order, it will be perfect. It will be the best whatever it is that you ever had. As consolations go, that’s not a bad one.

I walked in and was immediately glad I’d called ahead, an hour or two previous, to make a reservation. It was a Saturday night and the joint was jumping, though mutedly and tastefully. We were immediately greeted by Mrs. Carmelo Sr., known to everyone as Phyllis, so familiarly and exuberantly that I assumed she was acquainted with my dining companion and didn’t find out he didn’t actually know her until well after she’d put her arm gently around my waist and led us to our table. A couple that came in just after us had no reservations, but managed to get a table within a quarter-hour. Still, I’d call ahead.

The place was packed with people, most of whom knew Phyllis, or seemed to; though, as I observed, it’s hard to tell. I started with a glass of cabernet, my companion with a Barbera, and over the fresh, warm, crusty bread and complex, spicy antipasto they set out for us, we set to perusing the menu as though it were a sacred text. Prince Edward Island mussels ($9.50)! Ragu Bolognese [Emilia-Romagna style] ($17)! Peppercorn seared ahi tuna, rare ($20)! Andouille sausage crusted haddock ($17)! Which ones could I bear not to eat?

We started off with a couple of salads ($7 each)—mine was the “Carmelo Salad,” which, far from being typical, had maple-basil balsamic vinaigrette drizzled over Gorgonzola cheese, yam sticks and mixed greens. It sounds odd but made perfect sense. Indeed, this is an overarching theme of the food here: No matter how odd it sounds, when you get it and taste it, it makes perfect sense. My companion’s salad consisted of a unique combination: roasted beets and goat cheese. But of course, they were perfect together.

We had a foccaccia ($7.50) for an appetizer. Continuing the theme of Gorgonzola cheese, of which the chef is justifiably fond, it also had caramelized onions and fresh crushed thyme, atop an absolutely perfect crust—puffy yet firm, dissolving into a harmony of flavors with the toppings.

My companion had the Tuscan tortellini ($24), which incorporates scallops, shrimp, tomatoes, capers and calamata olives in an almond pesto sherry sauce. A tempting description, but it cannot convey to you the fact that the shrimp will be so perfectly done that they burst when you bite them, that the scallops likewise will be tender but moist and toothsome. My companion sat, fork in hand, and actually dithered over which piece to eat, because he was trying to decide which piece to save for last. Each component was so perfect, so exquisite, so lovely, that he did not want to finish it, but he could not bear to stop eating.

Meanwhile I had ordered the Blu Berry Filet ($35), a grilled eight-ounce filet topped with a balsamic blueberry reduction. Who would think to put blueberries on steak? But apparently they do it that way in Tuscany, and they are not fools, because it was a perfect pairing. Blueberries naturally have a very subtle smoky undertone of flavor, which is absolutely transcendental when paired with a tender, rare steak, very slightly seared on the outside and just barely bleeding on the inside.

After such a holy experience as our entrees, it seemed almost silly to ask for dessert. What could dessert possibly offer after such perfection? But I’d had half my steak wrapped to take home, expressly to save room for dessert, because Phyllis makes many of the desserts herself, and I thought for the sake of completeness I really ought to try one. My companion protested that he was too full so he’d just try some of mine, until I pointed out that the dessert menu included a bosc pear glazed with basil-infused honey and stuffed with bleu cheese, then baked.

He couldn’t not order that. I had the tiramisu because everything else had been so good, I had to see what they did with something so traditional. It was perfect—light and fluffy, espressoey and rich. I had a glass of vin santo along with it, which was rosy and sweet and delicate, the perfect endcap to a perfect meal. But my guest’s pear—his pear was like nothing either of us had ever had before. The pear itself was tender, delectable, sweet, but paired with the bleu cheese it was spectacular. It was a savory-sweet herby fruit concoction that set off my vin santo beautifully.

It’s a bit of a hike up to Lewiston, but now’s the season to do it. You won’t find anything like this in Buffalo. And young Carmelo himself is as much a treat as his restaurant—self-taught, passionate, experimental, but with excellent instincts, he dances to his own beat without ever putting a foot wrong. He strives for an impressionistic experience, putting the ingredients like daubs of paint on top of one another with finesse but no artificial polish, so that when you taste them, and step back, it is exactly what food should be. He loves what he does, and it shows.