FOOD & DRINK Hitting the Spot

Hyde Park’s Al-Posto serves up elevated Italian fare with a stunning backdrop.

REVIEW BY PAMA MITCHELL

The home of Teller’s of Hyde Park for 25 years reopened this spring as “Italian-inspired” Al-Posto, an Italian phrase which translates to “at the spot.” Based on one weeknight dinner, it seems that the restaurant already is a hit – and for good reason. I liked everything about it.

Teller’s was a go-to spot for many of us back in the late ‘90s when Cincinnati had relatively few contemporary restaurants. I had just moved here from Atlanta, and Teller’s was one of the very few places in Cincinnati that offered wine flights. It also was ahead of its time in featuring craft beer and somewhat adventurous menu items. The two-story former bank building with an outdoor terrace on the second floor was a fun and lively space.

After Teller’s ran its course, new owners did an extensive renovation and opened in fall 2020 as Dear Restaurant & Butchery. The team shifted gears early this year, scrapping the rather esoteric concept of combining a working butcher shop with a fine-dining restaurant. A few weeks later, it became Al-Posto.

I never made it to Dear, but based on the first of what I expect will be many dinners at Al-Posto, the shift to an approachable Italian menu goes well with the ambiance of the space that had been renovated for Dear. The main dining room, on the first floor, has an airy feel, a soaring ceiling punctuated with a skylight and bright geometrically patterned wallpaper and floor tiles. Local interior designer Michelle Pinales, who also designed Boca and Sotto, deserves kudos for the result.

Those pleasant surroundings certainly make a good first impression. Our host escorted us upstairs to a booth facing the skylight and wall art, and then our young server, Troy, took good care of us. That’s despite the two flights of stairs second-floor staffers have to negotiate every time they go to the kitchen.

The menu is as well designed as the dining space, clearly laid out in sections, with most of the dishes listed by their Italian name followed by its ingredients, mostly in English. Prices hover around midrange for a fine-dining establishment, with pastas at $19-$24, seafood entrees $25-$34 and meat dishes from under $20 for a gourmet cheeseburger and up to $84 for a 28-ounce porterhouse steak. The compact list of wines available by the glass, according to the menu, is “hand selected by wine director & sommelier, Austin Heidt.” (Heidt happens to be one of the owners, along with Giovanni

Ranieri). The selection of just 14 choices — two-thirds from Italy — features an organic pinot grigio from Veneto as the house white, a luscious falanghina from Campania and a smooth Super Tuscan from the Camigliano winery south of Florence, Italy.

I’m a by-the-glass wine drinker because I love variety and almost never order two glasses of the same wine during a meal. But after enjoying the falanghina with our appetizers, I broke that rule and had another glass with my entrée. You don’t see this varietal on many area wine lists, especially by the glass. It’s an unoaked, medium-bodied white wine with a distinctly floral aroma that is great on its own or to accompany most any food except fatty red meat.

Happily, the food we tried was as satisfying as the wine. I especially enjoyed the appetizers and desserts. For starters, we split the burrata appetizer and a chickpea and cucumber salad. The appetizer consisted of a generous portion of fresh burrata cheese accented with olive oil and a touch of sweetness from strawberry mostarda (a spiced condiment), accompanied by delicious, whole-grain grilled bread.

The salad was wonderful, based on frisée lettuce and full of savory, crunchy and salty ingredients. Other intriguing starters were arancini (rice balls stuffed with mozzarella and fried, served with a side of tomato sauce) and funghi fritti, or fried mushrooms, with a lemon aioli. There is also a panzanella salad as well as the house salad with shaved fresh fennel and parmesan cheese.

The pasta section offers an embarrassment of riches, making it hard to choose just one of the seven listed. We went for the orecchiette sauced with the classic combo of bitter greens, sausage and cheese; in this version, kale, two kinds of sausage and pecorino. I’d have liked it better, though, if the pieces of sausage were larger and the dish had a bit more sauce. I also prefer the traditional rapini instead of kale. Of course, kale is much more readily available and, no doubt, more familiar to Cincinnati diners.

Our other entrée was Pugliese skirt steak braciole, a dish originating in the southeastern region of Italy along the Adriatic Sea. Thin slices of steak are stuffed with prosciutto, rolled, baked in a tomato sauce, then topped with toasted breadcrumbs. Al-Posto’s version suffered from meat that was overcooked and, once again, a skimpy amount of sauce.

The menu features four seafood entrees, including grilled branzino and swordfish “alla Ghiotta,” two fish that I love. Next time, I’ll definitely try one of those. The branzino has a caper and parsley gremolata and toasted almonds, and the swordfish’s enhancements include tomatoes, anchovies, capers, chili and pine nuts. The latter is a classic dish from coastal Calabria, the tip of the boot of Italy.

Dessert comes last, of course, and for this meal, it was a knockout. Pastry chef Kayla Hunley wowed us with an off-menu special called strawberry cheesecake tiramisu. It wasn’t like any cheesecake or tiramisu we’d ever tried, but that is in no way a critique. It looked more like cheesecake, served in a wedge-shaped slice. What made it exemplary was the placement of the thinnest possible slices of perfect, local strawberries in peak season along the edges of the slice. Beautiful as well as yummy. We also had a cannoli, but it was eclipsed by the cheesecake-tiramisu.

My message to the restaurant: be more generous with the sauces. And, by all means, make more desserts like Hunley’s strawberry creation. Overall, bravo! And we will be back.