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Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Review

Slow food's time has arrived
Karen Deyle
September 13, 2007

THE PLACE

Lento takes its name from the Italian and musical term for slow. Not slow in the sense of time. But — mercifully — slow as the extreme opposite of fast food. Everything from bread to dessert is made from scratch with a focus on food from the region, grown with care, harvested at peak season. The meats come from animals that are grass-fed and free range when possible. Chef and owner Arthur Rogers changes the menu weekly and sometimes daily depending on ingredients available. To be fair, this kind of select and careful cuisine is pretty expensive, but the tastes are bold and bright and fresh. Is it worth the difference to know your portions of meat were never frozen, the veggies not flown 1,000 miles or more? You will have to determine that. For us, it was a pleasant and enjoyable experience.

THE FOOD

Salt and pepper were absent from the table, which sometimes gives me pause, wondering how the chef's palate would dictate.

I began with a BLT salad ($10) with buttercrunch romaine from Raindance Harvest Farm in Webster. Sprinkled around the greens were large dense lardons of apple wood-smoked bacon and three tangy rounds of fried green tomatoes. The buttermilk chive dressing was seasoned just right, and after two or three bites, I became less uneasy about the unavailability of salt. The tomatoes were fried to a smooth crispness, and the heat of the fried rounds with the cooling buttermilk dressing made a wonderful combination.

My companion chose the brown sugar-brined grilled Berkshire pork chop ($30). The outside was dusted with herbs and grilled with a nice surface char, and inside it was a tender medium-well. The juiciness enhanced the brining. The chop was served with a side of buttermilk chive mashed local potatoes and braised collards with a corn and beet relish. In the case of the collard greens, the salt was a bit assertive for our tastes.

I chose the vegetarian pasta entrée ($24) — five "mezzaluna" crescent-shaped pasta pillows, stuffed with Lively Run goat cheese and pine nuts. The sauce was a pan-sautéed heirloom tomato sauce. Shredded squash blossoms, a chiffonade of basil and a single nasturtium flower crowned the pasta.

Here is where Chef Rogers' concept comes to life. These tomatoes, brought in from the chef's garden daily, taste richer than any tomato you've ever tried. The richness made it almost seem like a creamy blush sauce, but it was the pat of butter added at the end that bound it all together and made it shine.

For dessert, we shared a plum tart ($6) with homemade butter crust and a rich filling that fell somewhere between a stiff almond paste and a light pastry cream. The pinwheel of plum slices held their fresh picked flavor.

THE DRINKS

There is a small, eclectic wine list. We chose the wine pairings suggested on the menu. For me, the Gavi Araldica ($7), a crisp Italian white, like a Sauvignon blanc but with more body and acidity. It was a nice counterpoint to the goat cheese and the buttery smooth pasta sauce. My companion chose the Angeline Pinot Noir ($7), a coastal California Pinot from Mendocino. It was more complex than some California Pinots with berry and vanilla notes.

THE ATMOSPHERE

The ambience is simple with natural materials of the old warehouse space. Artwork is simple as well, and does nothing to distract from the meal.

 

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Lento

City Newspaper

By James Leach on Sep. 19th, 2007

Dining at Lento can be a church-like experience. The dining room has a hushed, almost reverent feel to it - uncluttered, a study in subdued browns, the only splashes of color the lushphotographs of food on the walls. The photos provide focus for your visit: food, fresh from the farm, carefully selected, and lovingly prepared by Chef Art Rogers and his crew.

A native of Rochester, Chef Rogers is a true believer in the tenets of the "slow food" movement: local, seasonal, fresh, and organic ingredients carefully selected, expertly prepared, and served with almost theatrical flourish. His menu is full of local ingredients, many of them drawn from the Rochester Public Market or from Rogers' own garden, with a heavy emphasis on free-range organic meats and sustainably caught and harvested fish and seafood. The chef insists that everything - including the bread, pasta, stocks, sauces, pastry, and ice creams - be made on premises. This drive to place only the best and freshest on Lento's plates, regardless of effort and expense, translates into a menu whose prices can cause sticker shock.

Shortly after we were seated, our waiter arrived with the menus, a fragrant slab of focaccia, and dish full of fruity, vibrantly green olive oil. With a sprinkle of kosher salt and a couple grinds of black pepper, the oil made a wonderful dip for the dense and chewy bread. The menu itself enumerated and pedigreed the ingredients in every dish -- Raindance Harvest Farm buttercrunch lettuce, Lively Run goat cheese, Ganz farm half chicken, Wolfneck Farms grilled organic ribeye, Berkshire pork chop.

My party settled on two salads, one soup, a single appetizer, both of the pasta offerings, and two of the entrees, and then turned to Lento's eclectic and very affordable wine list. Rogers says that the list reflects his desire to offer wines that are "sensational without being crazy expensive." The list is heavy on bottles in the $20-to-$25 range, and all of the glass offerings range from $5 to $7. There are solid syrahs, cabernets, zinfandels, and rieslings, but there are also malbecs, a tempranillo, several Italian whites, and a gewurztraminer. In addition, there is a surperb cabernet-merlot-malbec-pinot noir varietal blend.

Our first course arrived in the hands of four waiters who swept over the table so quickly that the food seemed to magically appear. The house salad ($7) was simple, fresh, and well-dressed. The BLT salad ($10) - crisp romaine lettuce tossed with lardons, served with fried green tomatoes and a real ranch dressing (buttermilk and chive rather than that dreadful stuff from the grocery store) - offered a nice set of cold-warm, savory-sweet, crunchy-chewy contrasts. Likewise, the white corn soup ($8) countered the essence of corn with the bite of chive oil and the sweet-hot savor of a corn and chile salsa. Of the appetizers the best was the frito misto ($9), literally "mixed fry" of calamari, hot red piquillo peppers, and chickpeas with garlic aioli. The calamari was crispy outside, velvety smooth inside, and the aioli gave some punch to the flavor without making it soggy. The peppers added a nice, subtle heat that undercut the potential heaviness of the aioli.

Four more waiters arrived with our entrees. The first pasta dish we tried was the chef's interpretation of chicken cacciatore ($25). Here, the chicken was replaced with two adorable little quail, the sauce composed of roasted tomatoes and zucchini, the olives intensely flavored green piccolines, and the pasta a house-made pappardelle. The quail was expertly boned and fork tender, but the tiny legs and thighs begged to be picked up and discreetly gnawed after a quick dunk in the thick and flavorful tomato sauce. The pasta, however, was underdone and required a knife and fork to cut. The other pasta dish, goat cheese and pine nut stuffed mezzluna (half moon-shaped ravioli) in a tomato butter sauce ($24) was much more satisfying. The huge flavor of very ripe tomatoes was countered by a generous quantity of butter and the sinful creaminess of the goat cheese to create a flavor that lingered agreeably on the tongue.

Chef Rogers' pork chop, served with a corn and beet relish and accompanied by collard greens and buttermilk chive mashed potatoes ($30) was simply wonderful. A huge double pork chop arrived seared outside and medium rare inside, the crust giving an agreeable char to the succulent meat. Accompanied by the earthy beet relish, which brought out even more of the sweetness in the pork, this was an impressive (if impossible to finish) effort. The pan-seared cod ($28), a large fillet of  pure white cod perched on top of a bouillabaisse of mussels, couscous, red pepper, beans, and kale in a seafood broth permeated with the savor of sweet corn, was equally huge.  The cod was good, as were the mussels, but the broth, subtly flavored with saffron, stood out. We were inclined to push the empty shells to another plate and make sure not a drop of it escaped notice.

Dinner at Lento is not only good, but also good for you. In that sense, the desserts, which taste too healthy to be called dessert, are a fitting end to your meal. An oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookie ($2) tasted very much like a PowerBar, and the peach-blueberry crostade (basically a free form pie, $8) would have made a good breakfast but not a great after-dinner sweet. You would do better to order another glass of wine, perhaps another appetizer, and save dessert for another day.

 

Tastes: Lento - Rochester Insider
New Village Gate restaurant takes advantage of local harvest
Written by Troy L. Smith
Photographed by Matt Wittmeyer

July 18, 2007

The Web site for new Village Gate restaurant Lento says that 'lento' is Italian word for slow.

One visit to the eatery and a quick chat with owner/chef Art Rogers, 29, of Rochester, and that becomes crystal clear.

This isn't Burger King or McDonald's.

In today's world of fast food and quick solutions, Rogers and the staff at his restaurant take time to make sure diners get their money's worth.

"I want people to feel like they're eating at someone's house," Rogers says. "I want them to feel like they're eating in a dining room relaxing, as the owner of the home is back there cooking a family style dinner."

Lento also tries to keep things local, using as much produce and meat as possible from area farmers with whom Rogers has developed personal relationships.

"I cook everything fresh, based on what I can get during the season," he says. "And I cook everything from scratch. We're not opening bags back there and dumping things on steam tables."

Who goes there?

"We get everyone, from young professionals in their mid- to upper 20s to people who are in their 70s or so," says manager Jason Longo, 27, of Rochester.

Most expensive dish.

Wolf Neck Farms grilled organic rib-eye with green garlic mashed potatoes and zucchini ($32)

Least expensive dish.

Freshlink Farms mixed greens and cucumber salad with sherry vinaigrette ($7)

What would surprise a first-time diner?

"Our menu changes daily or every other day," Longo says. "For instance, we'll always have chicken, but we'll be adding different things to it, and it may be cooked differently."

What's there to drink?

Lento offers a large selection of wine and more than a dozen beers. Longo says the restaurant also has a handful of exclusive wines imported from Italy. (example: 2005 Covey Run Riesling for $6 a glass or $22 a bottle; 2003 Kendall Jackson Merlot Vinter's Reserve for $7 a glass or $27 a bottle).

What's the décor like?

"We have a fantastic, rustic space, and we simplified the design so it wouldn't take away from the presentation of the food," says Longo, who is an interior designer by trade. "The photos throughout are pictures of the local farms and products that we use."