Are You Ready for Italian Sushi?

On the heels of Zengo's Wednesday opening, which brought us Latin-accented sushi, Sette Bello, the new restaurant from Franco Nuschese, springs "Italian sushi" on us.

According to the restaurant's Web site, "What makes Sette Bello different is its exotic 'Italian sushi' bar consisting of carpacci , tuna, octopus, salmon, and, of course, Italian rice." My best guess is they mean crudo, the Italian version of sashimi that offers slices of raw fish simply dressed in lemon, oil, salt and subtle flavorings. (The New Yorker's food issue last month had a nice profile of David Pasternack, chef of New York's fabulous Esca, that credits the restaurant's owners with starting the crudo craze.)

Sette Bello's addition of Italian rice is mysterious, and I'll be eager to hear any reports from the field. Also on the menu: antipasti, pasta, pizza, insalates and Southern Italian wines.

The restaurant is located in Arlington at 3101 Wilson Blvd.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I just discovered your blog, via DCist. It's excellent, thanks for all your research! I just mentioned Metrocurean in my crappy little LiveJournal blog. Keep up the good work!
10/13/2005 4:59 PM
Anonymous said…
I'd guess that "Italian rice" is risotto but risotto wouldn't seem to fit in with the tone/style of the restaurant.
10/13/2005 6:18 PM
Italian Chef said…
I would suspect the Italian rice in question is "Arborio" simply because Arborio is the softest of the rices used for "Risotto" and would be closer in texture to "Sushi rice".
11/13/2005 11:41 AM
Anonymous said…
I ran out of regular sushi rice this morning and decided to cook up some Arborio in my electric rice cooker, and it turned out that the cooked rice had a similar consistency to that of sushi rice, but with a sweeter tone and larger chewier grains. So, definitely seems to be worth trying out.
7/12/2006 11:26 AM
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