In easy stages, the menu has been expanded from desserts and coffees to include sandwiches and salads, then pastas, and now an ambitious list of appetizers and entrees prepared by chef Alan Skversky.
Finally, it seems time for a review.
Napoleon is not a place where I would have expected to dine anonymously. Cataldi and Charest know me from a previous column I wrote citing their courage and vision in bringing a world-class establishment to working-class Port Richmond.
We arrived at both meals without reservations and were almost defeated by that. The restaurant is extremely popular, and at both lunch and dinner there were few tables to spare.
Both meals had much the same menu, with lower prices on entrees at lunch. My dinner order of tagliolini vongole was $14.50. At lunch, the price is $10.50. A lunch order of pasta tri funghi was $9.95. Dinner price for the mushroom-rich dish is $15.
Both pastas were good enough to make the prices seem acceptable. The tagliolini vongole had a dozen perfect littlenecks nested in a swirl of perfectly cooked angel hair pasta and a flavor that was herbal and intensely delicious.
The pasta tri funghi had a creamy tan sauce infused with the deep woodsy flavor of porcini and the snappy texture of champignon and shiitaki slices.
Appetizers were all salad based. The three we tried were so visually appealing and so perfectly composed that I guessed, correctly, that the salad makers followed a blueprint in making each one.
Salad Montrachet brought a slice of warm, wonderful goat cheese atop an arrangement of arugula petals, shredded radicchio and endive slices. Dressing was a mix of walnut oil and sherry vinegar. Garnish was a scattering of freshly shelled walnuts.
A dinner partner's salad had thick slices of pink, moist smoked duck breast, mixed greens and fresh raspberries in a raspberry-sweetened vinaigrette that went nicely with the richness of the duck.
