As a neighborhood, Beacon Hill was born gentrified, and still, it has needed to evolve. Old money has had to make room for new. And some familiar places have had to rethink themselves. Take Toscano, the Italian place at the low end of Charles. It used to be a reliable low-key joint in the North End style: tasteful-homey. It was nondescript but well liked, even if the staff's demeanor for takeout orders suggested they didn't always like you. Either way, it was the only reasonable place to get a slab of lasagna on the way home from a latish night at work. It felt like a real neighborhood place.
So much for that. Now Toscano is competing with Bin 26 Enoteca, that box of glitz across the street. That restaurant is a hit both with diners and with passersby who love peering into windows to see expensive-looking people eat. Toscano never had that kind of transparency or that kind of chic. It does now. The restaurant has changed owners. And they've changed the restaurant. The reduxed Toscana has a museum-quality finish. Rich, hand-carved walnut floors, an ornately carved wooden door here, a gorgeous 12-person wood table there ("there" being a private dining room called the Grotto). Exposed brick. Stone walls. A kitchen visible through a lovely six-paneled wood window. It all feels homey, especially if you happen to be a termite.
On a recent weekend night Toscano's four-or-so open dining areas were crowded with the same people you see at other classy restaurants and, refreshingly, some people you don't. It's a date place, an anniversary place, a work-dinner place, a "Cashmere Mafia" place (three young women celebrated one friend's "amazing" haircut by "splurging" on carbs). Thirty minutes waiting for a table was enough time to see the host greet or send off familiar faces and posses.
The service is as decent as the décor is warm. But there are problems, namely: how to keep up with the specials? Some Italian restaurants in America, Toscano being one, seem to pride themselves on having the wait staff memorize a list and read them out loud, enumerating each ingredient until they all blur into each other. Is the garlic sauce with the filet mignon or the stuffed pork loin? Argh. Compliment the waiter on his memorization skills or stump-speech-quality delivery all you want. But no matter how precise he is (and Giacomo, you were very good indeed), someone is guaranteed to ask for a repeat. How about incorporating something European, like specials à la chalkboard?
Some of what comes out of the kitchen hits the spot. Some of it doesn't. Tomato bread soup is soul in a bowl. And no squid-hater will be able to resist the grilled calamari plate. It was - as Snoop Dogg would put it - a sensual seduction. But that was as good as things got. The breaded sole special failed to crack the mystery of this inescapable, overpriced, overrated fish. (The woman who ordered it said the dish might have made her feel woozy. Apparently, it even perplexed her tummy.)
That spinach-stuffed pork loin special was the winner of the aforementioned garlic sauce, but the meat was excluded from the harmony of flavors that surrounded it. An instant improvement would have been losing the cafeteria-style green beans that rode shotgun with both dishes and adding the mustard-hollandaise that came beside the calamari. Spread a little of that in the Negev, and you'd have peace in the Middle East.
A casserole dish of peppered lasagna Bolognese had a pleasingly spiky kick that nobody saw coming. However, it did not manage to kick the ho-hum sweetness out of the tomato sauce. The highlight was a juicy bone-in rib eye. It was as big as a squash racquet, and all that stood between it and perfection was a crisper searing.
Toscano is the sort of reasonably affordable place that doesn't have to be that good to be considered great. While Bin 26 is exploring the Italian culinary map, Toscano, with its bigger menu, is playing to the home crowd. And the crowd seems pleased. It's true the place has changed but not that much. It's still pretty much the only restaurant in the neighborhood to get a takeout slab of lasagna.
Toscano Restaurant. 47 Charles St. 617-723-4090. www.toscanoboston.com Entrees $14-34, wines by the glass $8-15
