porchetta

The culinary trend in NY over the past few years has been towards restaurants that specialize. Restaurants that only serve mozzarella, only serve desserts, only serve banh mi sandwiches, only serve cupcakes, etc. It's a nice movement because if a restaurant can't excel at that one item then it won't survive.

The latest one I tried this weekend was Porchetta which makes (wait for it) Porchetta. It's an appropriate and smart branding approach to name your restaurant this way when specializing in something. Wikipedia describes it as a savory, fatty, and moist boneless pork roast of Italian culinary tradition. Where do I sign up? They basically take the pig, debone it, season/stuff it with things like garlic, fennel, rosemary, etc. and wrap it up in a thick skin of fat. This then gets oven baked. The fat liquifies and drains through the meat cooking it. The outside turns to crackling. Porchetta (the restaurant) serves it two ways. On a Sullivan Street Bakery roll and on a platter with greens and beans. It's as good as you'd imagine.