Trattoria L'Incontro

Trattoria L'Incontro
2176 31 st Avenue
Astoria,NY

Food 7
Ambiance 6
Service 7
Overall 20
Good for small to large groups ready for a loud time with fresh well made pastas and well portioned mains

So I finally decided last night I must dine in Queens. I figured enough with the focus on all things not in my borough. The problem is  that there is not a plethora of cool or interesting spots. The list is fairly small with many options having been sampled prior. And unlike Brooklyn or Manhattan, I find there are not new restaurants popping up every week. Many tried and true favorites. However, running through my  head  restaurant file, I remembered Trattoria L'incontro, which has often received uniformly good reviews. I was in the mood for good Italian, less Italian American and more  new Italian ,so it seemed like a possible good match. I must confess that what sealed my fate for coming here was a review on yelp which talked about there many daily specials with unusual combinations like pear Gorgonzola ravioli. I am  partial to the point of mild lunacy to that particular combination because on my honeymoon in Italy, my first afternoon in Florence ,I had the distinct pleasure of being forced heaven bound by eating just such a  ravioli. They melted in my mouth ,a succulent lush combination of fragrant ripe pear dotted with creamy Gorgonzola enveloped in a pillow of the thinnest and freshest pasta in a butter sauce dotted with hazelnuts. Yes, I digress. But if only I could just bite into them one more time....
So obviously there was no chance in hell we weren't going to Trattoria after I read that review.
We arrived on Saturday a little after 7 pm without reservations. The exterior decor is beige brick- that is unassuming and fairly boring.  We entered the restaurant  and were immediately overwhelmed by the noise level. This is a fairly large restaurant and it caters more to small groups than the romantic pair. The decor is standard attempted charm. Annoying "bathroom-kitchen" looking floor tile with large village scenery paintings on the wall. As soon as we entered, we were greeted warmly by the host and promptly seated at our table. Within seconds our server arrived, dressed in a black suit with an earpiece in his ear. I paused briefly to verify there was no President in the house, as our server looked suspiciously like an political bodyguard. Trattoria ,as I was soon to learn, is all about the show. Our waiter paused to greet us briefly before launching into a litany of specials.And when I say litany I mean litany. All we needed was a few Hail Marys and we would have all been blessed.The standard menu, in case you are wondering, is not by any measure small to begin with. A decent selection of antipasti, pasta and mains to choose from. The specials easily double that menu. Our waiter,apparently having the specials fed to him on the earpiece, paused infrequently, only enough it seemed for requisite breathing and my necessary questions. Honestly I cannot remember most of what was shared. I strategized once I got the gist of the game to pay attention to ingredients that sounded tasty to my ear.  While I enjoyed the extensiveness of the specials and the show of the delivery, it would help for those not graced with  incredible audible memory to have a board listing the specials. In any case after several questions of clarification, my husband and I decided  for an "only specials" meal. We opened with the ravioli with apple and mascarpone cheese ($19)  to share and I would continue with  a whole grilled branzino ($29) and my husband with a grilled double Berkshire pork chop ($28). Both mains were served with a standard roast potatoes and green beans. While pondering our menu, we surveyed the wine list which featured a well priced selection of primarily Italian wines with a few other options thrown in. As I am a big lover of Amarone, we though about getting an 80 dollar bottle until the host came to whisper in my ear that they had two wine  specials, a 200 dollar Brunello going for 60 dollars and and Amraone/Brunello mix. We went for the Brunello, which I have never had but heard much about and which is usually very  for my budget both here and Italy. Our Brunello arrived, an average tasting  wine which paired better with my husbands pork than my branzino, certainly not enough complexity for the prior price tag of 200 dollars but not too bad for the 60 we paid.
Back to the food forray. Our apple ravioli on separate places, a nice accommodating touch. The ravioli looked fresh- 3 each with a subtle truffle perfumed cream sauce laced across . The ravioli were tasty and fresh but unfortunately the apple was lost in the cheese. Every so often I had a faint whiff of sweetness but not enough to know there was apple in there. A shame, I had pictured small chunks of faintly sweet apple juxtaposed with the creamy cheese.  Now that would have been spectacular.
My branzino arrived a well sized whole fish nicely browned with perfectly cooked and seasoned sauteed  green beans and under salted white potatoes. The branzino was incredibly fresh but could have been seasoned more assertively with a bit more char flavor. My husbands pork was a tad over cooked but very well seasoned with beautiful caramelization on its exterior.
We continued to dessert where I had the house made tiramisu and my husband had the lemon tart. The tiramisu was light, not enough cream ng or coffee flavoring for my taste. The lemon tart was nicely tart but oddly capped off with a blueberry glaze which was overly sweet.
Disappointingly, they do not serve many after dinner drinks by the glass, most by the bottle.Again, the restaurant is very group friendly. I was considering getting vin santo or passito, but the waiter informed me they were out of both that night. Even though they are not my preferred post dinner drinks, I was surprised at the lack of grappas on the menu.

Over all, I would recommend this restaurant for a memorable friends  night  out on the pricey side with theatrical flair with friends if you are in Queens. If you are trekking from Brooklyn or Manhattan, there are many more memorable places to spend your money on.  I did enjoy the sense that if I became a regular here I would soon be on a first name basis with the chef(who did make table rounds) and the the staff.  As you may have guessed from the review so far, the  service was very attentive and friendly.