East End Eats: Il Monastero

There are days at this time of year, like last Sunday, when you can laze outdoors on the grass while the glory of spring whirls around you in a blur of daffodils and birdsong. Then, one's menu thoughts turn to exquisite salads of homegrown greens, a small earthenware bowl of garlicky gazpacho, perhaps, or a delicate carpaccio of tuna in black pepper.

And then winter returns, tearing through the new green shoots in a fury of wind and sleet and fueling freezing torrents in the gutters as you totter on the sidewalk in your new strap sandals. That's when you want comfort food: garlic bread and thick soup, heaps of pasta, and something with lots of chocolate.

And to find it, you could do a lot worse than put on your earmuffs and head to Il Monastero on East Hampton's restaurant row: North Main Street. It doesn't seem so long ago that Chez Labbat was the only game in town - now you need two hands to count the village's good restaurants.

For all its restrained, elegant decor, Il Monastero remains a family restaurant - a down-to-earth Italian place where you know what you're going to get, where you get a lot of it, and where children are not greeted with a frosty glare but given toys to keep them happy and quiet.

On a recent evening, the restaurant was completely full, but five people around a roomy table could still hold a conversation and not have to shout.

The delicious, oily garlic rolls will put paid to any spring diet you have started, but it's hard to resist them. In fact, it's probably best to forget about the calorie count at Il Monastero, because the portions are huge. This is great for doggy-bag toters, who like to have enough for lunch the next day, but can shrivel the appetite of delicate flowers who don't eat a lot.

Mussels Stood Out

The restaurant (which makes a whisky sour from a mix, we regret to say) has a modest but sensible wine list, from which we chose an interesting, fruity amarone. It wasn't a good year, according to our wine expert, but when in doubt choose a bad year of a good wine rather than a good year of a mediocre wine.

Of the appetizers chosen, the mussels in a white wine and garlic sauce were outstanding. I don't know if it was the particular wine used or what, but the sauce was divine. Also high on the celestial chart was the fried mozzarella (see what I mean about calories), which was so good that another diner had to restrain herself from ordering a portion.

Baked clams have always seemed a bit on the heavy side to me, but these had a pleasantly creamy sauce and if they were a little overseasoned, well, that was the way their recipient liked them. Stuffed artichoke, a traditional staple on Italian menus, seems to have unfairly slipped out of fashion recently, so it was nice to find it listed here. And very good it was, too.

Flawless Salad

The other appetizer chosen was a salad, so often a restaurant disappointment because all the attention is lavished on the fancier dishes. This one - basically arugula, endive, and radicchio - was flawless, with bouncy, fresh ingredients and a delicious dressing.

Among the entrees, the two pasta dishes, a linguine with prosciutto, olives, garlic, tomato, arugula, and pine nuts, and a rigatoni with fresh tomato, garlic, and pancetta, were judged fine and hearty. But I noticed slightly envious glances being cast upon the fine plate of orange roughy served with spinach and mashed potatoes.

I don't know what kind of fish an orange roughy is - maybe it goes by some other name on the fishmarket slab - but it was a delicate-flavored white fish cooked, in this case, to tenth-of-a-second perfection. High marks for good flavor and juicy tenderness go to the roast chicken with garlic, too.

Disappointing Desserts

Also among the entrees we tried was a hot breaded veal scallopine served with spicy cold chopped tomato, arugula, and mozzarella. The hot and cold made an invigorating contrast.

Raw tomatoes were once considered poisonous and were only eaten if cooked for a minimum of three hours.

It wasn't until 1840, when Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson defied death by publicly eating a raw tomato on the steps of the Salem, N.J., courthouse, that the superstition was disproved.

Colored Sprinkles

So we can thank that gallant soldier for the occasional reprieve from the ubiquitous "spaghetti sauce."

As in many other restaurants on the East End, the desserts didn't quite live up to what had gone before. So often people go without dessert, and making them is so time-consuming, that it must often be easier just to buy them from somewhere else. The danger of this is that the restaurant is then judged as if the desserts had come from its own kitchen.

There were some pleasant poached pears, a rich tartuffe ice cream, and a huge slice of chocolate mousse cake, all of which were okay. But there were some far-too-sweet cannoli dipped in horrible little colored sprinkles, which weren't. But this quibble weighed little upon a group of diners who had eaten well, enjoyed Il Monastero's cheerful, unpretentious atmosphere and reasonable prices (the average entree is $14 or $15), and left the restaurant ready to face the rest of winter with fortitude.