You Gotta Eat: Spiedini

Decadent delicacies: Spiedini serves Northern Italian fare with style

By Moranda Grey

New Year's Eve isn't the best time to review a restaurant. It's one of the most crowded nights of the year and service tends to suffer. The margin of error in the kitchen--whether it's forgotten orders or meals prepared wrong--increases by a factor of ten. But aside from some typical snafus (such as the people at our table hoping to wait it out until midnight instead of giving it up to the reservation behind them) Spiedini Ristorante at the JW Marriott gave a solid performance on the last night of 2004.

Its modern sophisticated decor and white table linens provided a classy contrast to the skankified twentysomethings and club guys wearing suglasses after 10 p.m. who patrolled the neighboring Plush Nightclub. On the Spiedini side, older and richer Summerliners toasted at the small, cozy bar to the right of its entrance, while several tables were set up outside the door as a courtesy for those who didn't call ahead. People-watching offered a cornucopia of sights, as the truly moneyed raised an occasional eyebrow at the scantily clad imposter, fake handbag firmly secured next to overexposed flesh.

Most nights, reservations at Spiedini, Master Chef Gustav Mauler's flagship Italian restaurant, are not required. An interesting mix of hip up-and-comers, well-to-do retirees and the occasional table of blue-haired women give the place a slew of regulars as well as variety. No wonder: The fare, an eclectic blend of Northern Italian and Americanized Continental, presents a well-rounded mix of meat and seafood dishes. And on this night, a sampling of the menu was well-received at our table.

One of Mauler's signature items, the Osso Bucco (veal shank with bone marrow, $29.99), is served with a generous side of pasta and a rich tomato sauce. For the New Year's crowd, the menu also featured surf and turf, a filet mignon and lobster for $49.99, pricey for a small tail and steak. The typical menu selections range from $18 to $30, the most expensive being the lobster and shrimp fra diavolo for $36.99, a spicy tomato sauce cooked with several types of shellfish served over a generous portion of pasta. Other dishes include Chicken Involtini, a breaded chicken breast stuffed with Fontina cheese and spinach, for $18.29, reminiscent of a cordon bleu without the ham.

Appetizers include the typical chopped salad ($7.99) that put Mauler's original Oxo steakhouse on the map, a molded salad of corn, bacon, Romaine lettuce, bacon and Russian dressing, topped with crispy potato strings. While somewhat expensive for an appetizer, the salads at Spiedini present plenty for two to share.

Spiedini's wine list hosts a number of solid dinner whites and reds that can accompany any Cabernet or Meritage-seeking meat eater or Chardonnay-drinking seafood connoisseur. Servers, dressed in white shirts with black plants, were attentive and informative despite the large crowds that distracted them on their way past. Bar service lagged, though that's probably because of the notoriously libation-heavy holiday. But as far as surviving the pressure-cooker of one of the busiest nights of the year, Spiedini definitely held its own.