Anella

A few weeks ago, we dined at Anella, the restaurant being described as the restaurant living in the Queen's Hideaway space.  Some big shoes to fill.  People loved to love Queen’s Hideaway. It exuded “quirky genius” according to New York Magazine.  Anella is doing it’s best to take the reins and keep the pace.  The menu has a ton of excellent options.  We were relieved when we discovered they were out of pizzas for the evening, rationalizing that at least we could narrow those out of the equation.  The bruschetta of the day was a roasted vegetable.  It came with a balsamic reduction, which sealed the deal for our order.

We both got salads – me the New York state farm greens and him the arugula with Bayley Hazen blue cheese.

At $7, both salads were very fresh tasting; nothing to write home about but good nonetheless.

Though pizzas were off limits, one still seems worth mentioning, as it is something for which I’d consider returning. The truffled cheese and onion pie with fresh thyme and olive oil sounds fantastic! It’s something I want to try to make at home in the meantime.

For our entrées, I went for the bucatini.  It was housemade and tossed with oven-dried tomatoes.  I don’t know what the real difference between oven-dried and oven-roasted is, but they tasted like roasted tomatoes.  Not a bad thing.  Just, maybe, misrepresented?  The dish was a heaping portion of pasta.  It was very simple.  Leftovers the next day were enhanced with spices, crushed red pepper and vegetables.

Taylor had the chicken, which consisted of an enormous breast and almost as large leg.  It was a lot of bird on the plate. Again, simple.  But tasty.  It seemed to be a bit underdone in the middle, which was disconcerting but he was too full to get that far into the meat.  It came with potatoes – some which were roasted to perfection and others, which were hard.

We were too full for dessert but the specials sounded good, especially an almond panna cotta.
Anella is good for a neighborhood restaurant and if you live in the area, you should be glad that it’s now a nightly option.  However, I would not travel to this spot again.  And, if it’s trying to be anything more than a local’s joint, they’ve got a lot of work to do.

The kitchen.