Old-school style
Vintage serves big portions of steak and Italian specialties
Think big. That's the message at Vintage, a West Roxbury restaurant that merges two popular concepts: steakhouse and Italian. Veal parmigiana drapes off the plate. Prime rib is so expansive the mashed potatoes and vegetables have to be served separately. A side of macaroni and cheese could be an entree. "Does anyone ever finish these?" we ask our waitress. "Sometimes," she says, "and I always congratulate them."
On the table, time stands still. The menu features old-school occasion food: shrimp cocktail, veal Oscar, fettuccine Alfredo. It appears Vintage is a big birthday spot, perhaps to the chagrin of the otherwise capable wait staff, who must falter through an off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday" with every candle-adorned sweet that goes out. The restaurant feels fancy, but the prices aren't. It's glossy, vast, with wood surfaces everywhere and several fireplaces; out front it's marked by a giant "V" protruding from a jagged stone block (a far cry from the gesticulating chicken sign that was here when the restaurant was Fontaine's). About the trendiest the menu gets is molten chocolate cake.
This is all great - unpretentious and welcoming, somewhat nostalgic, and very filling. But quantity is often the best quality on the plate.
An antipasto platter, for example, is largely made up of sliced meats and cheeses that look straight from the deli counter. (Personally, I'm glad time has moved past round slices of lunch meat on antipasto platters.) They come with asparagus, olives, a few shrimp, gherkins, and a little dish of what seems to be mango salsa, which no one knows what to do with. It's a sorry selection.
A margherita pizza is a more welcome starter, topped with tomatoes, melted cheese, and chopped basil. It's a tad overcooked, but it's perfectly acceptable. Spanakopita pizza is a white pie made with spinach and feta. For some reason, the spinach leaves have been placed on top before the pizza was fired, which scorches them into spinach chips.
Many things here taste pre-prepared: the salad dressing that remains separated no matter how much we whisk it, the sauce on the veal parm. That sauce has an odd, bell pepper-esque aftertaste. The veal itself is fine, about four meals' worth of meat, thin and breaded, topped with sauce and melted mozzarella and Parmesan. It comes with a choice of fettuccine, penne, angel hair pasta, basmati, mashed potatoes, or seasonal vegetables (in name, at least - recently this was a medley of zucchini and summer squash). It's hard to go too wrong with meat on pasta with melted cheese and sauce, aftertaste or no.
The sauce that comes on shrimp fra diavolo is much better. It's straight-up tomato, and it is actually devilish. The chili flakes find an able sidekick in garlic, and the shrimp are cooked nicely. "Would you like grated cheese with that?" one of the attentive servers asks. Why not? We wait for her to return with a hunk of Parmesan. But the cheese turns out to be the powdered stuff from the green can, served in a stylish dish: a neat summation of the Vintage experience.
The Vintage chicken is a modified Marsala. It goes light on the wine and incorporates artichokes, mushrooms, and asparagus. Pork chops are described as grilled with lemon oil sauce and Greek spices, an enticingly fresh-sounding dish; two thin, large pieces of pork are on the dry side but tasty enough. No spices are noticeable. Basmati rice and more "seasonal" vegetables (barely cooked) come on the side.
Steaks are a focus here. The king cut prime rib could feed a hungry couple, with leftovers for the dog. It's served au jus with mashed potatoes and vegetables. At one diner's request, the waiter willingly substitutes asparagus for squash. The steaks may not be the best you'll ever have, but they're priced mostly in the low $20s, and they are - wait for it - big. On one visit we see a dressed-up blonde, zipped into a sleeveless number, tidily polishing off the 20-ounce porterhouse. Impressive.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, you get a free dessert with dinner for two or more. Cheesecake is basic and good, if a bit gummy: just the slice, with a few strawberries on the side. Leave the cannoli. They're terrible; the cream sits at each lip of the shell, which is unfilled.
Molten chocolate cake is more molten chocolate than cake. It could have baked longer. Same with cookies - several each of oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, and peanut butter - that fall apart when you pick them up. For some reason, they smell like the grill. Both desserts come with giant bowls of vanilla ice cream - like half-the-carton giant.
This restaurant opened as Vintage in 2005 after the long reign of neighborhood institution Fontaine's ended. It's since changed ownership and is now operated by the folks behind Alfredo's in Quincy. Vintage is still in flux - chef Brian Roskow left a few months back to remake Dottie's in Hyde Park, another neighborhood institution (it's now the Hyde). This leaves sous chef Claudinei DeSouza, formerly at Alfredo's, in charge for the moment. The restaurant seems fairly busy, even on a weeknight. According to the Vintage website, generous portions are DeSouza's specialty. At this price point, that makes some people happy, in a big way.
Devra First can be reached at dfirst@globe.com. 
