Five New Spring Dishes to Love at Bastone
Bastone is the Home Park homerun from Pat Pascarella, who also runs favorites like Grana, Alici, and The White Bull.
The stylish restaurant has made its name on its gleaming mozzarella-and-salumi bar, where mozzarella is stretched in-house and where prized cured meats are sliced expertly. Now, with a new chef in Cole Pate aboard, we’re also loving the wide range of spring dishes hitting the menu right now. Here are some of the new hits that you shouldn’t miss next time you go:
Blistered Sugar Snap Peas
Yes, you know about Bastone’s signature mozzarella bar, where the mozzarella tasting is the move. This vibrant, verdant dish has stracciatella — mozzarella shards soaked in cream — spread as the base. It’s then topped with sugar snap peas and English peas that have been blistered in a hot pan. The peas are dressed with a brown butter vinaigrette and plated atop the stracciatella, followed by peach and apricot mostarda. To top it all off? Fried crispy mortadella, of course.
Salanova Mixed Greens
In this spring salad, the star is Salanova mixed greens — that’s a trademarked hydroponic lettuce mix — that are dressed in an herby vinaigrette. A song of textures is created with the tossed additions of shaved watermelon radish, red radish, and blanched romanesco. For those extra pops of flavor, it’s all finished with toasted pinenuts and an herbacious salad of dill, mint, tarragon, and parsley.
Salmon Tartare
With both winter citrus (blood orange) and spring vegetables (artichokes), this dish is a bridge to the new season. You’ve got three ounces of finely cut salmon mixed with marinated artichokes, chives, shallots, pickled mustards seeds, and an artichoke vinaigrette. To surprise and delight, you get finishing components of crunch (squid ink tuile!) and spice (pickled teardrop chile!).
Fiori
This dish is comfort in a bowl. Here, fiori pasta marries beautifully with a hearty rabbit sugo. To add those layers of flavor and texture that take it beyond your nonna’s sauce, the kitchen folds in guanciale, blistered and marinated cherry tomatoes, Castelvetrano olives, fennel fronds, and blistered sweet peppers.
Blood Orange Glazed Salmon
A bright entree for a sunny spring day, the almond-topped, blood orange-glazed salmon sits atop a bed of blistered peppers, sauteed shallots, and swiss chard. But the real stars are the salsa rossa (a blend of red bell pepper, tomato, olive oil, carrot, garlic, focaccia, white vinegar, parmesan) and the blood orange glaze, made with blood orange puree, chicken stock, butter, and honey.
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