Briscola Is a New Trattoria That Looks (Way) Back in Time
When Briscola Trattoria opens in Crown Heights on Friday, there will be meatballs on the menu. But instead of appearing on top of spaghetti, they will be inside of baked rice. The dish in question is called bomba di Silvia, a stout mountain of tomato-suffused carnaroli encasing a center of mini meatballs and peas to be discovered at the table, with more sauce and meatballs on top for good measure. Chef Silvia Barban took inspiration for her version from the southern Italian sartu di riso, which is often doughnut shaped and meatball studded, as well as northern Italy’s bomba di riso, historically stuffed with game like pigeon or pheasant. The idea came, in part, from Barban’s upbringing near Milan, with summers spent in Calabria — so she named it after herself.
At her first restaurant, Larina in Fort Greene, Barban reaches for global ingredients — black lime zest on the agnolotti del plin, for example — to modernize Italian recipes. With Briscola, she wants to pay homage to classic flavor profiles and forgotten recipes that Barban has plucked from semi-obscurity, like paccheri in sugo finto, or “fake sauce,” where stewed tomatoes, celery, carrots, and herbs are meant to mimic the presence of meat.
The trattoria is named after a centuries-old card game that doubles as a word that approximates “hangover,” something you’d say to convey, I had too much fun, and Barban and her partners (who are all in their 30s) want the restaurant to work as an ode to the more humble traditions of the actual trattoria experience of their youths, one that favors convivial and copious dishes, like the bomba, which serves two. The menu is heavy on easy-to-share starters, like beef carpaccio, and buffalo-milk ricotta with bottarga, and pastas like one with cuttlefish and ink sauce. Mains include a costoletta alla valdostana, which is basically Italian cordon bleu, here made with bone-in Berkshire pork (instead of the usual veal); as well as fish, purchased from Montauk fishing cooperative Dock to Dish and wrapped in a parchment parcel for cooking.
If this all sounds like the makings of an ideal neighborhood spot, that’s because it’s just the purposes Briscola has been designed to serve. The restaurant sits in the former Aita space on Franklin Ave, where Barban had previously worked, and which she and her partners acquired earlier this year. They had been operating with the same menu until they shut it down in August to flip the space — setting aside just 13 days for the renovations — by painting the outside in red and yellow and tiling Briscola down the middle of the dining room floor. In the kitchen, Barban trained the same staff with her new recipes (which also include a spinach-and-ricotta doppio ravioli and fresh tagliolini with a sweetbread ragu).
There are modern touches here and there — sourdough from Anything, Italian wine on tap — but the goal is to evoke the timelessness of Italian service throughout the meal: A final touch of nostalgia will be delivered by a visit from the dessert cart, once standard in trattorias. “The carrello di dolci brings back memories,” Barban says. “It’s one of the things that I always wanted to do.” Briscola’s will be modest, but nevertheless stacked with classic profiteroles, a seasonal crostata, and a zuppa inglese, the classic trifle with vanilla and chocolate custards layered into a semisphere and served by the slice.