For this week’s art interaction, I went out to lunch at Madison & Fifth, an indoor-outdoor restaurant on Palo Alto’s University Avenue. I would classify the cuisine as Americanized Italian, offering large selections of pastas, pizzas, and other traditional Italian food items such as raw beef Carpaccio, Veal Parmigiano, mushroom Risotto, etc. Specifically, the restaurant boasts to be a New York City Italian restaurant, meaning that they serve Italian food as they do in restaurants in New York. Hailing from New York City myself, I can vouch for the authenticity of Madison & Fifth’s claim. It is also interesting to note that the restaurant’s name is a reference to two New York City avenues. The ironic implication here is that no such intersection as “Madison and Fifth” actually exists in New York. The two avenues only “intersect” figuratively in Palo Alto, of all places.

In terms of the restaurant space, the interior was filled with trendy modern architecture and furniture. The bar featured a huge countertop made of grey granite. Murals of urban imagery covered the walls. In general, I felt it more fitting as a dinner-spot with low lighting than as a space for lunch in the bright afternoon. However, if the restaurant’s layout aimed to give a city type feel, I think it succeeded especially with the granite and the murals.

As a group we ordered Sautéed Calamari and Insalata Caprese as starters and then Pizza Margherita, Chicken Milanese, Penne alla Vodka, Penne Strascicate, and Linguine con Calamari. The two dishes I will focus in this review will be the Insalata Caprese and Penne alla Vodka, as those are the items specifically I ordered. In choosing what to get off the diverse menu, I decided to take an almost cliché route: the tomato and mozzarella appetizer and the penne main course. I did this in order to evaluate and compare Madison & Fifth’s interpretation of these standard Italian dishes to the same dishes I have had many times, especially at Italian restaurants in New York.

The Caprese Salad diverged greatly from my expectations of the classic tomato and mozzarella starter. Instead of the usual circular stacks of slices of red tomato, mozzarella cheese, and basil, the tomatoes and cheese were assorted in the shape of a fat cross in the center of the dish. A few leaves of basil were placed at the center of the cross. Instead of just having red tomato slices, this salad had wedges of both red and yellow tomatoes. However, the wedges seemed a bit odd and impractical, as it was harder to combine the different ingredients into one balanced bite than with the usual circular stacks. Also, in addition to the normal seasonings of olive oil, salt, and pepper, there were some other significant ingredients and flavors presented in this dish. On the outer parts of the plate, there were four dollops of pesto, two black olives, and two strange unidentifiable pickles/olives. These latter two vegetables (which I had never seen or tasted before) were also an odd choice in the dish as they had an extremely sour, harsh flavor that overpowered the lightness of the tomato and mozzarella. However, overall, I did appreciate the presentation of this dish. I liked having to create and pick and choose from the many different flavors offered to me. In many ways, I felt power in deciding how to eat the dish rather than being told how I should be eating it. The variety and the untraditional ingredients definitely put a nice twist on a dish I am quite familiar with.

I had the opposite experience with the Penne main course. Instead of an unsorted mix of very distinct flavors, the Penne was presented neatly in a single conglomeration in the center of a big white bowl. There was not nearly as much as a “feast for the eyes,” as there was with the very colorful Insalata Caprese. However, in terms of taste and flavoring the Penne was brilliant. The vodka sauce was pleasantly subtle and light. With my experience with many Penne alla Vodka dishes in the past, the sauce turns out to be overbearingly either cheesy or alcoholic; however, this one was perfectly balanced. The pasta itself was cooked well and had a very fine texture. The bits of bacon added also a nice subtle flavor that wasn’t overwhelming.

In comparison to the salad, I felt like there was little choice in how to eat the pasta dish. Whereas I felt the Insalata Caprese was trading on having distinct, sparse tastes with each bite being completely different than the one before, the Penne was trading on being a satisfactory whole with equal and exact flavors in each bite. I didn’t prefer either type of dish to the other, and what I most appreciated was that Madison & Fifth had the foresight to offer both. All in all, I was very impressed with this restaurant’s cuisine and can say it does indeed resemble some of New York’s better Italian restaurants in both feel and food.