On European time On European time (August 06, 2004)

Ragusa's fancy fare takes too long

By Mandy Erickson

With the merging of European interests came the euro and the European Union. In Los Altos, the Savinovic family from Croatia opened Ragusa, where cuisine from throughout the Continent shines.

Ragusa does a fantastic job in the kitchen, where chef Mark Savinovic produces exceptional grilled meat, soup and pasta, but there's room for improvement in the dining room.

My first impression wasn't a good one -- I was still waiting to order a cocktail when I saw people seated after me dig into their appetizers.

Granted, my dining companion and I visited Ragusa during the Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival last month, a hectic weekend for the Main Street restaurant, but our visit was continued long after the music stopped and many of the dining room tables had emptied. And a lunchtime trip during the week was similarly frustrating.

Our cocktail, when it arrived, was a Manhattan ($6.50) that was fine except for being watery -- most likely it had been sitting in the shaker too long and the ice had melted. We waited for what felt like an eternity to order the rest of the meal, and while the waiter was professional and friendly, each course arrived after much too long of a pause.

We started with the Ragusa platter ($18.50), a terrific appetizer for two hungry diners. It contained smoked salmon, cheese (the menu said it was feta, but we were served brie), prosciutto, melon, olives, pickled red bell pepper, grilled prawns and cocktail sauce. The portions were divided in two, which was fortunate, as we would have fought over the prosciutto and smoked salmon, both of them salty, silky and sumptuous. The melon was delicious, juicy and at the peak of ripeness. But the pepper had a harsh, bitter acidity, and I couldn't eat more than a bite. Curiously, the olives resembled the flavorless black circles that adorn Mexican-American entrees.

The French onion soup ($6.50) was excellent: The caramelized onions melted on the palate, and bay leaves enhanced the broth. Its broiled cheese topping didn't overwhelm the dish as it often does, and the slice of toast nestled in the bottom of the bowl was pleasantly sour.

Our neighboring diners -- the ones who arrived after us -- had graduated to dessert and coffee by the time our entrees arrived. But the timing worked out because I had time to develop an appetite for the Ragusa mixed grill ($21), a hefty serving of grilled chicken breast, sirloin steak, pork tenderloin, lamb chop and chevapi, a patty of ground beef, veal and pork. Save for the steak, which was a tad chewy, all the cuts were succulent, tender and flavorful. The meat was impaled on a sword-handled skewer and topped with a rich, red-wine sauce that included slow-simmered carrots, onions and red and green bell peppers.

I asked for mashed potatoes with the entree instead of rice, and it was the right choice: These were fluffy, buttery, speckled with parsley and delicious. The other side dish, a small pile of steamed carrots and broccoli florets, was the dud on the plate. Overcooked and bland, the vegetables could easily have been omitted.

The menu describes the pan-seared prawns and scallops ($20) as topped with a pesto sauce, but the white wine cream sauce had so little basil we could hardly taste it. The scallops were perfectly cooked but the prawns were a little overdone. This dish came with a hearty serving of garlicky sauteed spinach that had unfortunately spent too much time in the pan.

Ragusa's lunch menu differs from the dinner fare, with more sandwiches and salads. A recent soup of the day was tomato basil ($4.95), delectable with a hint of cream and chunks of fresh tomatoes. But I was taken aback to find the basil dried, not fresh. Dried basil imparts a distinct flavor, and it works for the soup, but in mid-July, why not use the real deal?

The Ragusa salad ($8.50), a respectable mixture of fresh, crisp lettuce, included red and green bell peppers, red onions and tomatoes. But the dressing had too much vinegar, and it was topped with more of those bland olives.

Mushroom fettuccini ($12) was a near-perfect dish of fresh pasta, caramelized onions, cream sauce and three kinds of mushrooms: crimi, oyster and shiitake. The pasta had a terrific bite, the sauce a mellow, rich flavor.

The white wine cream sauce that coated the sauteed calamari ($11), finger-sized strips of squid steak, had a nice kick that the otherwise flavorless calamari absorbed well. This meal came with a bright-yellow serving of saffron-flavored rice and more of those unfortunate steamed vegetables.

Our waiter recommended two dishes from the dessert menu, tartufo limoncello ($5.50) and bananas foster ($7.50). Both were hits: The limoncello (lemon gelato) had a lemon flavor that wasn't quite real, but it was very light and refreshing. The banana slices in the bananas foster, sauteed in brown sugar and butter, then doused with brandy and lit, packed a flavor far greater than such a simple dish would suggest.

We strayed once from the dessert recommendations and regretted it. The berry tart ($7) was soggy and stale, and we couldn't taste the almond cream and mixed berries. It was topped with a Matterhorn-sized serving of ice cream that didn't help matters.

Ragusa offers an extensive wine list, with labels from California and Europe in all price ranges. But there are no half-bottles, and the only wines available by the glass are the low-end ones.

When I called Ragusa to see if reservations were necessary for a Saturday night, the answer was, "Of course, this is a fine restaurant." Ragusa is a fine restaurant, but a classier joint would pay better attention to all its diners.

Dining Notes

Ragusa
325 Main Street, Los Altos
947-4919

Open daily 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 9 p.m.
Also open Friday, Saturday and Sunday for breakfast 8 to 10:30 a.m.
Open for Sunday brunch at 10:30.

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