When The Four Seasons Hotel here opened, we were wowed by its airy seventh-floor lobby and restaurant, seemingly suspended in the sky. Panoramic windows and a rooftop patio contributed to the ambiance, making the dining room’s name especially well-suited: Cielo (‘sky’ in Italian).
Then when hotel GM Alper Oztok, a native Turk, took the reins in 2011, he made a decision that has defined Cielo ever since: an authentic Italian restaurant should have an Italian-born chef, he reasoned. So when chef Fabrizio Schenardi was moved to the hotel’s Orlando property, Oztok wasted no time replacing him with another native Italian, Gian Nicola Colucci, who arrived here in April.
What this means is that at Cielo you can expect authentic Italian regional fare. Old country methods are evident in every dish, especially the pastas, all house-made. Tonnarelli ($25), a spaghetti variant, comes with lobster, tomato and prosecco bagna cauda, a Piedmontese sauce of garlic, olive oil and anchovy flavored with prosecco. The large chunks of lobster meat were sweet and the homemade egg pasta divine.
Same for Maltagliati ($21), noodles with a slow-cooked and flavor-dense sauce of pulled port, wine, tomatoes, spinach and a hint of orange. This dish, from Emilia Romagna, is hearty and uses flat, wide noodles.
A starter of Tomato Soup ($6) illustrated the traditional rustica emphasis on simplicity. The thin broth was loaded with the most mundane of ingredients— spinach, cannellini beans and diced carrots—yet packed with flavor. The beans were creamy, the broth salty.
Another starter, Sea Scallops ($13), veered from the traditional, with four crustaceans mounted on slivers of fennel and apple, oyster mushrooms and a sweet-tangy vanilla bean sauce–agro-dolce, which means ‘sour-sweet.’ The flavors were strong, especially the fennel and vanilla, and infused creative energy into an omnipresent appetizer.
An entrée of Colorado Lamb Chops ($45) was superior in every way: very well-trimmed and -browned chops with Grappa demi glaze. The meat was superb in flavor, the sauce dense and intense with the grape flavor and sugar of the brandy. The accompanying melanzane timbale (eggplant ‘drum’) was baked with a bit of creamy cheese, and the local baby carrots provided a welcome garden-fresh foil for the fat-rich meat.
Albacore Tuna ($28) also came packed with flavor: the tart, acidic tastes of caponata, including capers, olives, peppers and marinated eggplant. The fish was clean and fresh tasting, served perfectly rare with a light sear.
A printed dolci (sweets) menu offers 10 Italian desserts, including our Chocolate Budino Cake and Neopolitan Baba, each $8. The first is a dense chocolate cake with blueberry confit and delectable apricot sorbet; the second is a brioche-like Limoncello sponge cake filled with a mix of custard and whipped cream. On the whole, I’d say desserts were not as successful as the savory dishes.
Note: The $50 and $35 tasting menus, each offering four courses, are excellent values. The portions are smaller, but they are adequate and allow you to taste more of this outstanding menu.
[amuse bouche]
THE SCENE | Elegant contemporary Italian restaurant
THE CHEF | Gian Nicola Colucci
THE PRICES | $35 and $50 prix fixe options; $6 to $14 starters; $24 to $65 entrees; $19 to $25 pastas
THE FAVORITES | Tomato Broth, Tonnarelli (pasta with lobster), Maltagliati (pasta with pork,) Colorado Lamb Chop
[chef chat] >> gian nicola colucci
PEDIGREE | Colombatto in Turin, Italy
FAVORITE INGREDIENT | Fish or fresh vegetables
FAVORITE RESTAURANT | I like Niche and Libertine.
FAVORITE COOKBOOK | Alain Ducasse
MOST MEMORABLE DINING EXPERIENCE | A sushi restaurant in Japan where the fish was incredible, so fresh
GUILTY PLEASURE FOOD | Nuts
four seasons hotel | 999 n. second st. | 314.881.5759
By Jonathan Carli
Photos: Bill Barrett