Night and day

The airy, long corridor of Bolla pulses with energy at lunch, while dinner takes on a more muted atmosphere.The airy, long corridor of Bolla pulses with energy at lunch, while dinner takes on a more muted atmosphere. – JUSTIN CLEMONS

The Stoneleigh’s Bolla soars with its lunch menu but stumbles at dinner

This is a tale of two restaurants that happen to occupy the same space. In the far corner is Bolla, the lunch edition; in the opposite corner: Bolla, but for dinner. What separates them is less the menu that what each tries to accomplish. The winner? Lunch, by a knockout.

Not to say that Bolla, the new modern Italian restaurant inside the newly refitted Stoneleigh Hotel, looks much different whatever time you go. Day or night, we’ve always dined on the Wolf Street side, which occupies a narrow strait connecting the hotel lobby and sleek bar with the back room.

At lunchtime, the space is crowded with eager diners, and threading your way through the minefield of tables and sheer curtains that serve as its walls is awkward but has bustle. If you didn’t know better, you might imagine it was the café inside New York City’s Bloomingdale’s.

At dinner, when it’s calmer, the prices go up and the energy goes down.

aThe risotto balls — a delightful amuse bouche at dinner — raised expectations. – JASON WYNN

It’s not bad that lunch is better than dinner, it’s just different. At noon, Bolla is a happy café; at 7, despite positively gorgeous presentations of every dish, its stab at fine dining is underwhelming.

Naturally, each meal has its pros and cons. At lunch, the artichoke portion of the artichoke fritto ($12) — small florets deep-fried and served on a skewer — proved the least interesting aspect of the dish. But the pesto, flaked with shaved Pecorino cheese, is a refreshing, herbaceous sauce that is just as nice for dipping the Italian bread as is the tomato confit that comes gratis when you sit down.

Lunch is completely a la carte, with sturdy, well-priced classics. Take the Bolla burger ($12), listed among the panini but aside from arriving on a bun, bearing no similarity to the grilled Italian sandwich. A thick slab of beef, generously ensconced in Mimolette cheddar with tomato, lettuce and roll, was as mouthwatering as it looked. The pomme frites were also nice — not too oily and dusted with parsley.

But neither the burger nor any panini are listed on the dinner menu, which offers instead three- and five-course prix fixe meals in addition to single items. Why remove a bright spot when the sun goes down? Because Bolla at night wants to raise the culinary bar. Still, we missed the burger.

Fortunately the entrée cannelloni ($18) is available at both meals. At first, the shell appeared crunchy, perhaps even burned, but that turned out to be merely the char on the cheese. Actually, the wrap was soft but not mushy, with spoonfuls of ricotta layered among the braised short-rib meat, tender and flavorful.

The amuse bouche — a yummy risotto ball — raised our expectations, but much of dinner, while good, never reached greatness. A beet salad ($12) looked dandy and tasted OK, but was unmemorable. The tuna carpaccio ($16), sliced thinner than the premise of a Will Ferrell movie, was delicate if almost diaphanously without substance.

The pork belly diavolo ($16) sounded sinful, but aside from a satanically red glaze and the surprising addition of a cheese gelato with a cracklin (pork rind) poking out, it lacked fire — it was likeable, not loveable. The bronzini fish, breaded with light seasonings on a potato tower, came with the waiter’s recommendation. Again, it was fine, but for $32, I want more than "fine."

An Italian restaurant needs to have a to-die-for spaghetti, but Bolla’s comes up short. Our complaint wasn’t with the house-made noodles, but with the Provencal sauce on the spaghetti ($22), which was bland and, despite arriving in a copper dish, lukewarm. The linguine with clams ($28) had more taste though it seemed over-salted. We were disappointed.

Nevertheless, the menu has some genuine four-star attractions. The lemon Napoleon ($8) soared with strata of lemon curd acting as the wonderfully tart mortar between layers of crisp, beautiful mille feuille dough. I’d do hard time to have a bite of that every day.

A second dessert, the chocolate terrine ($9), was nearly as good — dense dark chocolate ganache surrounded by sweet dollops of toasted marshmallowy meringue. Lots of restaurants do variations of s’mores nowadays, but this one reinvents it, without the Graham cracker and with elegance.

Comparatively, the blueberry and nectarine fruit crisp was a let-down, as was the dry, hard cookie accompanying the semifreddo.

Service has been an issue on each visit. The staff is pleasant enough, and we discovered that complaining loudly did improve service. But at dinner, it took fully 15 minutes before the waiter arrived with a menu, and a request for more tomato confit for our bread was overlooked until we went searching for a waiter. At lunch, we also met with a few issues, but at least it was busy enough to justify it. (Perhaps the problem is that lunch is so carefree and enjoyable, the higher demands of elegant nighttime dining have been overlooked.)

I like Bolla. Clearly the lunch crowd has already discovered its appeal, and the food has never been less than satisfactory. But after the risotto ball and especially the desserts, it’s plain that it can do so much more. Here’s to hoping the staff rises to the challenge.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition April 11, 2008.
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