Dining Brief/ Temporary BYOB Alert: Mia Dona

As I was browsing my usual food blogs on Friday I noticed a link to Mia Dona on Time Out New York. It simply stated that Mia Dona, the recreation of Dona by Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia has just opened and is doing BYOB for another two weeks. Thus a restaurant that was not really on my radar jumped to front and center. As an amateur wine collector (extremely amateur at this point) the idea of BYOB at a restaurant with a highly regarded chef (Mr. Psilakis is also executive chef at Anthos and Kefi) is too good to pass up. It affords me the opportunity to open up some nicer wine (that is usually marked up 100-200 percent on retail throwing it grossly out of my price range) and to know that it is going to be accompanied by good food.

I forwarded the link to my friend who works in a wine shop and we quickly decided that we should go on Sunday night.

As we arrived at the restaurant, bottle is in hand I felt a little unsure of myself. I don’t think that I had ever done BYOB in Manhattan before and was a little confused as to how to go about the whole process. As it turned out, the house was incredibly cordial when it came to our wine (their liquor license was just approved and the restaurant is still very much BYOB) and we were promptly seated in the back room.

Mia Dona is a recreation of the restaurant Dona which Psilakis and Arpaia opened last year. Although the restaurant received great reviews, it was forced to shut down and re-locate. Mia Dona is scaled back version of the original intended to mimic the relax feel of a Sunday night dinner in a friend’s house. In fact, the restaurant does such a good job of mimicking the inside of a house, that after you walk through the rather benign front of the restaurant with its blue and white walls, you come to a room that reminds you of something you might see in an Ikea catalogue. It’s a little too bright with blonde wooden wall paneling that’s a little too pristine, and bookshelves that contain bone white books with no title and presumably no words. If you like to go to a restaurant and feel glamorous, or even cool, the main dining room is a bit of a train wreck.

That being said, other than a few hiccups that can be a part of any restaurant opening (waiting a bit too long for the menu, receiving the wrong dessert) our food was well prepared. Octopus served with olives feta and anchovies, was tender and tangy and briny all at the same time and was a real pleasure to eat. Lamb’s tongue bruschetta was tender and flavorful and went well with its poached egg and crispy rabbit morsels tasted like haute chicken nuggets (in a good way) but probably could have used a dipping sauce of some sort.

Our entrees were solid but unspectacular. The polpettone, a Florentine meatloaf resting in beef broth with mushrooms stuffed with a soft boiled egg and brightened up by a heavy dose of fennel was satisfying and filling in a very cold weather home-y sort of way. Veal breast was tender and well prepared but not any better than veal served at any number of restaurants. The pork chop, again accompanied by a fried egg and lardoons was flavorful but a bit too salty and was left unfinished. The real star of the night was the ricotta gnudi, tender and puffy with a pleasant earthy undertone provided by truffle butter sauce and texture and salt provided by a generous portion of crispy speck.

Desserts again were good (we were a little too full at that point) and highlighted by a deliciously maple-y but light, maple panna cotta. Overall, I thought the restaurant showed well for an opening week but unless it remains BYOB I probably won’t be going back—the scene caters to a crowd that is a little older than me. I do however think the food reaffirms Michael Psilakis’ cooking skills and am definitely looking forward to going back to Kefi and trying Anthos for the first time.