The list of Italian Restaurants in New York and let alone in Long Island seem endless choose to from. But luckily for me, this time I had no problem settling for a visit on Trento, an Italian-American restaurant serving modern Italian dishes in a “retro-chic” setting.
Stepping inside the restaurant you are greeted with chatter from patrons at the bar and throughout the restaurant tables, with faint music coming from a different part of the restaurant. The atmosphere on a seemed respectively vibrant and noisy, pretty fitting for a on a Saturday night.
I was seated in the live music section featuring a singer recovering old school records. Trento seems to showcase live shows weekly in a certain part of the restaurant, separated by a curtain. I personally was not a fan of the live music, especially being so close to it where I could barely hear my partner, but to each their own.
Trento offers a wide Italian themed menu featuring antipasti, insalate (salad),and primi, or first course options, and secondi, or second course options. Primi at Trinto consists of only 6 pasta focused dishes, while secondi focuses on mainly meat and seafood. My experience consisted of both a primi and a secondi option.
First, Not pictured here today is two things: a drink and a salad. The first being the $17 dollar lemon fig vodka martini, which is unfortunately the new normal for drinks. The drink tasted refreshing, I loved how it leaned towards the stronger side, so I’ll have to say it’s worth the price. I did love the little pieces of lemon pulp in the cocktail as well.
The second thing not pictured here today is the one I regret not taking a photo of the most. While waiting on entrees, a Caesar salad that was not ordered suddenly graced its presence upon our table. Immediately, I was met with confusion at what seemed to be a deconstructed looking Caesar salad upon a rectangular plate. Two lettuce stalks were decorated with anchovies and oil scattered all around the leaves, and I am ninety percent sure the lettuce ends were still attached to the “salad.” I was kind of shocked at how it looked, which is why it took me a second to react to the server who put it on our table. Luckily, it was quickly taken back as the server realized their mistake. Perhaps I am not used to this new variety of salad.
The main course dish I settled on was the seared pork chop with a red wine balsamic glaze and brie cheese. It’s surprising how tender and cooked through it was, considering it was about an inch and a half to two inches thick. While the meat itself was good, the partners to the dish fall a bit flat from there. The brie cheese on top of the pork didn’t have any flavor or melt at and just kind of sat atop the pork in an odd, yellow-white, glue-like looking puddle. Peach and fig sat atop the mountain of meat and cheese like a flag crowning a mountain to add decoration, color, and flavor, yet it all seemed kind of lackluster, especially for a dish being $39 dollars.
While the fruit did add some sweetness to contrast a very salty red wine reduction, the texture for both fruit felt off. The peach was soft but could have benefitted from more time either being seared or grilled to give it a more sweet, smoky flavor, and the fig felt too soft and mushy, and would have benefitted from either being sliced into pieces or cooked quickly to develop flavor and keep a somewhat hard interior.
I did like the artichoke goat cheese ravioli on the plate however and would have liked more throughout the dish and not have 8 pieces arranged like they were conducting a ritual around the porkchop.
The seafood pappardelle had firm, al dente pasta with a mix of seafood scattered throughout the noodles and creamy tomato sauce. The pieces of scallop throughout the dish were flavorful and had a fresh taste to them. The shrimp was a bit too chewy and took a minute to fully finish chewing on and enjoy. I couldn’t notice the crab pieces until I realized that it seemed thinly shredded throughout the pasta and sauce, so I would have liked bigger crab pieces in the pasta. Despite the amount of seafood in the dish, it’s understandable why it’s $32 dollars.
For a shared side dish, the Parmigiano French Fries were great. They were very crispy and had a dusting of cheese and a nice cheese flavor on them. I honestly ate on them more than I did the pork chop. Certainly worth the $13 dollars.
What is finally pictured however is the dessert, which consisted of 3 scoops of gelato. The flavors were pistachio, chocolate hazelnut, and stracciatella. Pistachio was the best among the three, but they all were extremely good and very flavorful in their own rights, being perfectly sweet and super creamy. A rich, light treat to end dinner with.
Overall, Trento was not a bad place to enjoy dinner with. I’d give it 7/10 for rating, and would consider picking a different second course dish next time.