Donatello: Great chicken, just like Nonna's

Review from The Boston Herald by L.B. Minichiello.

Note: This review was written and published just a year after Donatello's opening. Some aspects of the restaraunt as well as some prices have changed. Still, we feel this is still a great overall review to offer to you.

    If you grew up with an Italian Nonna who was an excellent cook, you can go home again - home to Donatello. it's a restaurant that can bring back memories. And if you've never had good, Italian home cooking, then get yourself to Route I in Saugus. You just know it's good by the clientele, Italian-American faces in every group, drawn from neighborhoods in Saugus, near by Revere, Melrose, Malden, Lynnfield and West Peabody. Somebody at every table knows what he or she is ordering and can order from the menu without reading the translation. The dining room is pretty: pink tablecloths, white napkins fold ed like stars, graciously sized china and silver. There's a wonderful brick fireplace at one end, a mirrored bar with sparkling glassware, and comfortable seat ing. The waiters wear tuxedos and really know their stuff, from the menu to the specials to the wine celar. By the way, the wine cellar is visible to all diners in a glass enclosed room.

    For the first time, I have to admit, I choose a restaraunt because I thought it deserved a review. I'd been there once before, non-professionaly, with the gang. I returned to review it "audeux". My first trip was on a weeknight without reservations. The food outstripped the service that night. My return engagement was on a busier Saturday night, with reservation. That evening, the service was superb, the food very good. The menu begins with 10 antipasti, a trio of salads and a quartet of pizzette. Balancing the opposite side of the menu are a quintent of pastas, three fish dishes and 10 meat entrees. Offerings range from melanzane ai tre formaggi($5.50), a baked egplant appeitiser with ricotts, fontina, and mozzarella, to crostini di salsiccia($7.00), an oven-roasted sausage, mozzarella and roasted pepper salad on bread. The pizzette are exciting. One of the individually sized offerings is topped with prosciutto, artichoke, fresh tomato, mozzarella, garlic and oil.($7)

    Entrees include gnocchi ai quattro formaggi($10), potato dumplings with a sauce of four cheeses; a salmone alla champagne($16.95), a half duck boned, sauteed and served in cherry brandy sauce; and carre d'agnello alla senape($17.95), roasted rack of lamb with mustard-rosemary sauce. I've got to start with my recommendation for the best entree on the menu. Pollo arrosto con aglio e rosmarino($12.50) is a half a chicken roasted with garlic and rosemary. Neither the title nor the translation can adequately describe this dish. This is chicken the way my Nonna made it-aromatic, golden and puffed up with its own steamy juices. A side of roasted potatoes, tinged with gold and brown, completes the plate perfectly. The dish is pure nostalga for anyone who was brought up on good Italian-American food. It's enough to bring back all those Sunday dinners where the chicken roasted for hours in herbs, was the centerpiece at the table.

    Other successful dishes are a pizzette with tomato sauce, sausage, onion, mushroom and mozzarella($6.50). Better than anything at Papa Gino's and a lot less expensive. And if you don't have a large appettite, it can be dinner. Rigatoni alla Norma($10) made with tomato, basil, eggplant and grated ricotta was also incredibly successful. The pasta was large and handmade and blended wonderfully with the cheese and vegetables. We tried it as an entree, but it could be split for a first course. Dining as a couple on a recent Saturday evening, we started with polenta con funghi all rustica(7.95) and an order of frittura di calamari($7.00). The polenta, an Italian version of cornbread, was covered with melted fontina cheese and surrounded and sauced with roasted, assorted mushrooms. The wonderfully seasoned mushrooms were the more successful part of this dish; the polenta was not quite right in texture, the cheese on the gummy side. The fried squid was served with a homemade cocktail sauce. They could have skipped the sauce and let the rings of squid unabashedly served with the legs, shinme. It needed only the squeeze of a lemon. I sampled the fish special of the evening, a filet of grilled halibut wuth tomato, ripe olives, garlic and lots of ground black pepper. It was a delicious piece of fish and a nice treatment, although the garlic could have been cooked a little longer, a little more slowly.

    My dinner partner sampled the saltimbocca alla romana($16.50), a veal scaloppine topped with prosciutto, cheese and a fresh sage leaf. It was cooked in a white wine sauce flavored with sage. It was wonderfully tender. We tried one of the many Gavi wines on the list. Our waiter, the perfect host, later suggested his favorite for us-perhaps during another visit. He was kind enough to bring out the bottle so we could properly identify it.

    I know I'll return whenever I want something just like Grandma used to make. Save me a roast chicken!