Skip to main contentCome fall, the white-truffle economy in the Italian region of Piedmont booms. You can get your truffles everywhere-- from the infamous and furtive black markets of Asti to the respectable sales rooms of Alba.
Alba, Portland's first Piedmontese restaurant, has a reputation to live up to, but we'll have to wait until October to see just what shavings of the gloriously perfumed tuber shower down upon lucky diners. For the moment, however, Alba is one of the happiest, most promising places to open here in some while.
Piedmont borders France, and you quickly spot French influence on Alba's menu: a gratin of cardoons (also a local specialty in Piedmont), a terrine of duck, and sweetbreads with a veal demi-glace.
Piedmont's cooking is richer than that of the Italian south. Yet because much of the area is poor, there are many rustic, peasant-inflected dishes as well. The region's cuisine boasts brilliantly sauced duck, but it's just as likely to feature simple platters of risotto, polenta and pasta, in particular its specialty of tajarin, or very thin egg noodles.
Alba--the restaurant--is the namesake of a charming medieval town. It could be Portland's sister city, so abundant are its groves of hazelnuts. The restaurant does not demonstrate the full panoply of Piedmontese cooking, which includes such items as boiled meats and fritto misto (a platter of fried foods including brains, liver, sausage, eggplant, artichokes and semolina fritters). But it does feature Piedmont's celebrated Finanziera, a concoction of chicken gizzards, sweetbreads and wild mushrooms, named for the bankers who relished the dish (though the restaurant's version wisely eschews the traditional cockscombs). And Alba does serve such local specialties as that gratin of cardoon ($7), an underused vegetable with a long curved stalk like celery, grown to gigantic proportions, that tastes like an artichoke. This antipasto is golden with grated cheese, and the creamy individual casserole dances with bubbling richness. Another pleasing dish is carne cruda ($10)--chopped raw beef of great freshness, served with curls of Parmigiano, lemon and peppery green olive oil. A base of sun-dried tomatoes and pinot grigio enlivens a more familiar but excellent appetizer of mussels ($10) for a bracing and sunny, Mediterranean flavor.
Among the primi I liked the maltgliate ($11), flat sheets of housemade pasta tossed with salty prosciutto and crunchy asparagus, each ingredient complementing the other in color, texture and taste. But even better is the most typical Piedmont pasta--agnollotti--a kind of ravioli stuffed with pork and veal and spinach that swell the little pillows to bursting ($11). You can get into raucous debates in Piedmont about the appropriate size, shape and filling of agnollotti (Piedmont's pasta politics are worthy of earnest study). Alba's version, the squared rather than crescent version, would stand well in any competition. And though a brace of roasted red peppers rolled around a stuffing of butter-infused tuna ($8) sounds somewhat mundane, it proves to be an explosion of contrasting flavors.
The outstanding main course is a hanger steak ($19) braised in Nebbiolo sauce; this item may take the place of the filet of beef in port garlic sauce from the late Cafe des Amis as the best non-traditional steak in town. As good as the dark crusty slab of beef is, the accompanying fried potatoes themselves justify ordering this entree. Roast duck ($20) arrives crackling and juicy, and the luscious bird comes with an unusual vegetable; a purée of celeriac that's tart and lemony. Yet another rarely seen vegetable dish, a gratin of Jerusalem artichokes, accompanies a tender, succulent, caveman club-sized shank of lamb ($17) resting on a glistening bed of deep-jade spinach.
The only disappointment in several meals here was the salmon ($18), tantalizingly prepared with a light sweet-and-sour sauce and served with a cranberry bean purée; but the fish was rather dry, and the purée seemed no more than a serving of mushy refried beans.
Among the desserts, a caramel pot de crème ($5) with intense, almost leathery and smoky flavors stands out. The other sweet that beautifully rounds the meal is a lemon polenta cake ($5). I've had versions elsewhere far too grainy, but Alba makes it soft and smooth while preserving the nutty taste and moistening it with a lemon sauce that looks like satiny sunshine.
The restaurant's two dining rooms have a spare, clean look, with few adornments other than a picture or two and some wine racks. Some softening touches would be nice, but admittedly the simple decor adds to the sweetness and places Alba's emphasis firmly where it belongs--on fresh and flavorful cooking. There's also a small wine bar, a nice place to retire for a postprandial grappa.
6440 SW Capitol Highway, 977-3045.
11:30 am-2 pm Wednesday- Friday, 5:30-9 pm Tuesday- Thursday, 5:30-10 pm Friday- Saturday. Credit cards accepted. Children welcome but seldom seen. $$-$$$ Moderate- Expensive.
Cardoon gratin; agnollotti stuffed with pork, veal and spinach; roast duck; hanger steak; lamb shank; lemon polenta cake; gelati.
Gentle, informed service.
WWeek 2015