Upscale Italian in Inman, but where is everybody?
Twenty-seven. That's an awful lot of people we watched as they considered dinner at Benatti and then quickly moved on down the street. It was a recent Saturday night, during the prime dinner hours between 7 and 9 p.m., and one by one, would-be diners lingered over the menu posted outside and kept walking.
For most of the night, we were the only table at Benatti, a new upscale Italian restaurant in Cambridge's Inman Square, and it didn't quite make sense. The place, just a little more than two months old, is attractive and intimate, a narrow sliver of a restaurant that seats 18 people and is illuminated by soft track lighting and backlit mirrors.
Eventually, though, we figured out why people kept strolling by. Let's start with the typography on the restaurant's sign. It sounds silly, even ridiculous, I know, but Benatti suffers from what one of us keenly described as "hair-salon font." It's true: The slanted, curly-cue script, which extends to the menu, makes it hard to decipher even a simple word like "agnolotti."
If you didn't see diners through the windows (more on that later), then you could easily mistake the place for a high-end salon. The massive steel lamp that jets out over the table by the window certainly doesn't help matters; it's handsome, but it looks like you're dining under an industrial hair dryer.
All of this is a shame because, by and large, the food at Benatti is quite good. Chef-owner Andrea Benatti's menu keeps it simple, focusing on eight pasta entrees, three meat dishes, two fish options, and daily specials. The appetizers, however, could use a pinch of creativity. How do you get excited about yet another plate of prosciutto with slices of cantaloupe? You don't. The same goes for a rather ho-hum variety of grilled vegetables soaked in olive oil.
Which brings us to our biggest quibble: too much olive oil. A pan-seared yellowtail snapper was fantastic: light and redolent of the accompanying saffron vinaigrette, with a hint of heat from the grilled red peppers. But the risotto cake underneath tasted purely of olive oil. A delicate fish suddenly felt like a brick in the stomach.
Did I mention that the appetizer portion of prosciutto with cantaloupe cost $15? Here's Benatti's other big hurdle for diners: It's way out of its league in its pricing. You can justify $36 for a choice piece of filet mignon here (and it was worth every penny), but $22 for a rather modest portion of tortelloini is tough to swallow - especially when you realize you can get the same high quality and double the helping for $10.95 at Carlo's in Allston. (Note: Don't even think about ordering the half portions, unless you're dining with Tweety Bird.)
And that's when Benatti starts to feel like an odd addition to its neighborhood. It's smack in the middle of a long stretch of really good, budget Portuguese restaurants - Benatti, in fact, was formerly a Portuguese spot. A few doors down, the Brazilian churrascaria Midwest Grill serves up endless swords of meat, all you can eat for $24.95.
In the other direction of Cambridge Street, you cross Prospect Street and get into higher-end territory: East Coast Grill, All-Star Sandwich Bar, and Olé Mexican Grill. Perhaps this is where Benatti belongs, but it's a tough call if those diners will venture a few blocks down.
They should because there's a lot to like about Benatti, too, starting with the efficient service and the incredibly warm welcome at the door. When I stopped in a few days early to make a reservation, owner-chef Benatti didn't mind that I was soaking wet from the rain and shook my hand and chatted a while.
Later on the phone, Benatti says he recently moved to Boston after eight years of running a restaurant in Key West, Fla. "I got tired of the island life," he says.
Problem is, Benatti isn't nearly as bustling and crowded as it could be. At this point, it's struggling with people like the last couple we saw chatting outside as we left the restaurant. "It looks good," a woman said to her friend as they perused the menu, "but it looks empty."
Benatti, 1128 Cambridge St., Cambridge, 617-492-6300. Appetizers: $11-$15. Pastas: $20-$22. Meat: $32-$36. Fish: $27-$28. Desserts: $10-$14. Wine per glass: $10-$16.
James Reed can be reached at jreed @globe.com.
