A Mano Awards

A Mano Restaurant Review:

Italian fare gets a seasonal, gilded touch at Townsend Wentz’s second outing, A Mano. With the chef-driven cuisine as its focus, the Fairmount restaurant is small, cash-only and BYOB. The west-facing windows let in the glow of sunset --- a needed embellishment in the otherwise spare décor replacing a onetime corner store. While chef Michael Millon’s cooking is nominally Italian, the approach seems definitively French --- elegant and light, at times almost too ethereal to register. The meal begins with homemade sourdough focaccia and whipped butter, followed by delicate starters like arctic char crudo with sunchoke chips and a shaved vegetable salad with feathery wisps of ricotta salata and a roasted onion dressing. Second course pastas run the gamut from a traditional amatriciana to squid ink chitarra with breadcrumbs and mussels. Velvety lemon sauce offers an ideal contrast to crisped skate wing, while branzino, served over tender turnip disks, gets its fiery spark from an ’nduja vinaigrette and peppery salmoriglio sauce. For dessert, try the homemade bombolini or the chocolate orange semifreddo with mint sugar and chocolate cookie crust.