Along the way, the restaurant picked up a following of folks who seem to enjoy the reverse snobbery of fine dining with a view of rowhouse, front-porch clutter.
Totaro's menu arrives chalked on a blackboard, a device designed to permit daily menu changes and one that requires your server to spend considerable time and effort explaining the less familiar choices.
We tried both of the soups on the blackboard menu at lunch. The thin, red pepper puree had a slight sweetness that didn't seem particularly compatible with the wild mushroom caps that were the soup's other featured ingredient. But the clam chowder's surprise ingredient - creamy Fontina cheese - transformed that soup from old standby to new standout.
A composed salad brought artfully arranged salad leafies and crunchies in an interesting orange-and-tarragon-flavored dressing.
A partner's chicken saltimbocca was an affordable alternative to a dish usually made with veal. Well-seasoned and nicely cooked, it seemed just as appealing as the pricier veal version.
A dish intriguingly named Mexicali Rose consisted of cheese ravioli with a jalapeno-peppery tomato sauce. The sauce was fine, and the ravioli were attractively arranged around a clump of the peppers. The only disappointment was that the pasta itself was thicker and starchier than I find acceptable, a fault that was repeated in the shrimp-stuffed ravioli I sampled at dinner a few days later.
While I forked my way through the ravioli at dinner, a partner enjoyed his shrimp chowder. That fragrant soup had robust, seafood-flavored tomato broth, lots of interesting vegetables and plenty of shrimp pieces.
A small criticism of the crabcakes: I'd have expected them to be made with lump crab rather than shreds. The crabcake price - and, in fact, all the prices at the restaurant - seemed lofty enough to justify using premium ingredients.
