Cotogna

San Francisco, CA

It can be argued that Cotogna is one of the hottest tickets in town. Chu-toro and I were not impressed with our meal at Quince last year, but there must be a dozen local and national food articles talking about how Michael Tusk has done it again with his new casual homey restaurant next door. I finally was able to make it there on a Saturday afternoon for lunch with LoKo. Cotogna is known for its homemade pastas, pizzas and spit fire grilled pork. Although there are brunch items on the weekend, we decided to stick with the popular items, picking two pastas and sharing the roasted pork as the main. 

Wild nettle tortelloni with black olive and pine nuts

The first pasta dish we received was the wild nettle totelloni. I enjoyed the creamy nettle stuffing, but I felt the pasta was just a little undercooked along the edges. There's al dente and there's undercooked.

Gnocchi with dungeness crab and English peas

The best dish of the meal was the gnocchi, served with crab and peas. A generous portion of the surprisingly light and airy gnocchi combined well with sweet crab meat and crunchy peas. 

Spit roasted pork loin with wild fennel and chili

Their most popular dish, the spit roasted pork, had a decent flavor profile, but I didn't like how thinly sliced the pork was. Because of the way it was cut, I felt the meat was not that juicy or tender. If this was the best entree that Cotogna had to offer, I guess there's no real reason to come back. You might think because of the added expectations I had raised from all media hype, I was a little too critical but I think I'm just not that big a fan of Michael Tusk's restaurants. Despite the reviews I've read on yelp, the service was fine and overall the pasta was solid, but not earth shattering. And for these three dishes and tip, the meal was a steep $75. If you live in the area, its probably worth a try (they also have a $25 fixed price meal on the weeknights) but I wouldn't go out of your way to dine here. 

Rating 6/10

April 15, 2011