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Chef Carlo Mirarchi of Blanca
I’ve been a fan of Carlo Mirarchi’s cooking for some time now and thoroughly loved the tasting menu at Roberta’s two years ago. I was fortunate to have been invited to join some friends for dinner at Blanca, the new restaurant within a restaurant at Roberta’s, designed to showcase Mirarchi’s special talent. Like his cooking, the dining room at Blanca is spare and relatively minimalist in its design. The focus is on the open kitchen and on the food. Music is provided by an eclectic collection of LP’s and a turntable. The lighting is better than most restaurants in NYC and one can truly appreciate the visual aspects of the food. While not encouraged, photography is allowed, however, the rub is, that the diner is asked not to put the food photos on-line. It’s a shame, because I managed to snag some really good photos of some really, really delicious dishes. Mirarchi knows how to let quality ingredients shine. His fish dishes were excellent and so were the pasta and vegetable dishes, but the main stars for me were his meat dishes. What Joshua Skenes has done on the West Coast at Saison, Mirarchi is doing in Brooklyn. Carlo has a knack for aging quality meat and gaining every last bit of intense flavor from it – without utilizing any fancy accompaniments. He is a true craftsman. From lip-smacking Iberico “secreto” to dizzying Colorado lamb to flabbergasting Wagyu beef, his meats were pure deliciousness. The very talented Katy Peetz’ desserts were right there as well. At the moment, Blanca is BYOB, which worked just fine for our party.
