Last April, Table & Main owner Ryan Pernice and Executive Chef Ted Lahey announced their intent to open a rustic Italian restaurant next to The Fickle Pickle in 2013. A chat with Lahey reveals their plans are shaping up nicely.
Called Osteria Mattone (pronounced mat-tone-e), the restaurant is on track to open between May and August next year. It will focus using simple ingredients and letting them shine. Lahey wants to have a wood-burning oven and make all of the pastas in-house. He foresees a menu with four classic Italian pizzas, as well as pastas, fish, steak and chicken dishes, like pollo a mattone (brick chicken), after which the restaurant was named.
“We’ll have some less recognizable classics, such as grilled octopus with garbanzo beans—but no sea urchin or anything like that,” Lahey said.
He expects Osteria Mattone to seat about the same number of people as Table & Main, but it will be roomier, with a formal dining room to the left of the entrance and a bar and more casual seating on the right. The exact floor plan is in the works.
Ted Lahey. Photo by Iain Bagwell.