Viaggio - Wayne, NJ

We had another excellent dinner at Viaggio Sunday night. We started off with a special salad of fried cardoon with alfalfa crest, roasted garlic in a Calabrian chili vinaigrette. This was the 1st time I had Cardoon, and it was very good. It was braised for several days in garlic, chili, and other ingredients. It’s normally very bitter, but the vinaigrette was a perfect compliment to it.
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We also shared our usual appetizer
of the excellent fried calamari with lemon butter, shallot, & chili.
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For entrees I had the excellent & decadent orecchiette with foie gras butter & chives. It also had little chunks of foie gras in it. RGR, the foie gras queen, might even approve😉
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Mrs. P had her usual Branzino al cartaccio with fregula, tomato, olive, & fried capers.

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I’m a bit confused by that picture of the bronzino, is it served in a bag? I’m a fan of bronzino but I have never seen a presentation of it like that, what is it being served on?

Yes, that is the cartoccio part (which means served in a bag). It keeps it nice & moist. They present it in the open bag, but then my wife removes the bag & puts it on the plate.

Interesting, I’ve only had grouper prepared in a bag, never seen bronzino prepared that way. Thanks for the clarification.

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You’re welcome, Junior.

Ha! I was going to say that grouper in a bag is very common in Florida…

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Wow…greats pics! Were those peppers on the squid pickled and were they hot? Looks like a fine dish!

I’ve never had fish in a bag. I might have to try it. I’ve had some good chickens though.

Thanks Johnny! Yes, the chili was pickled, but not that spicy. That calamari dish is one of my favorite appetizers.

Ths fish in the bag is good if you like a moist fish, plus they cook it together with the olives, fried capers, and fregula, so you get that nice Mediterranean flavor. The only setback is that the skin will not be crispy. It is still very flavorful though.

We had another outstanding dinner at Viaggio (which was just named to NJ monthly top 30 restaurants in 2018; increased this year from top 25).
Besides our usual dishes, we had an incredible hand cured pastrami bruschetta, with mustard creme fraiche, mustard seeds, and ramps. Wow! The pastrami was so tender and flavorful, especially with the mustard seeds and mustard creme fraiche. This definitely isn’t Katz’ pastrami :grinning:


We also had excellent thinly sliced crispy fried squash, with malt vinegar powder, Calabrian chili cream, and salsa verde.
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For an entree I had the awesome squid ink spaghetti, with jonah crab, charred corn, and a spicy jalapeno pesto sauce.

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Viaggio had a few excellent new dishes tonight.
Wild boar osso buco with saffron sofrito orzo and citrus gremolata. This was much leaner than regular osso buco and very flavorful.
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Fried eggplant topped with eggplant caponata and calabrian chili.
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Excellent gnocchi fritti with fig jam and gorgonzola la dolce
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We had another outstanding dinner at Viaggio Sunday night.
We started off with an excellent Di Stefano burrata presentation with roasted delicata squash, marcona almond crumble, apples, and toasted pumpkin seeds. It had a real Fall flavor to it.


We also shared a great special of mini stuffed peppers with pork sausage in a red pepper coulis.
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I had Chef Robbie’s take on chicken cacciatore with a very flavorful Lancaster Amish chicken, with fungi misti, house cured pancetta, and polenta. The skin was nice and crispy.
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Everything went great with an awesome Mario Bazan cabernet.

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Wow, those all look great! The wine is just a bonus! Lol

Were those peppers spicy at all?

Thanks cj. The peppers were sweet.

We had another great dinner at Viaggio. Besides the usual dishes we had a creamy Di Stefano Burrata with roasted delicata squash, marcona almonds, crumble, and apple. I also had an excellent entree of Piemontese tagliata with delicata squash stufato, charred Brussels sprouts, and smoked sweet potato. It all went great with El Salvaje Malbec.



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Looking great! I’ve never smoked a yam before. I might have to give this a try. Did they happen to mention what kind of wood they used?

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Thanks cj. No they didn’t mention what the sweet potatoes were smoked in.

We had another fabulous dinner at Viaggio Sunday night. They had an excellent special of squid ink linguine with uni butter, ground salumi, and scallions. They also had a great ‘low calorie’ appetizer special of tramezzini carozza which was a tempura battered and fried sandwich stuffed with mozzarella, straccino, and mortadella :slightly_smiling_face: We also had a roasted beet salad with ground pistachio, mint, and a parmesan crust, as well as their amazing fried calamari with lemon butter, shallots, and chili, and a homemade onion focaccia. Everything went great with a Janasse Chateauneuf Du Pape.






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We had another great dinner at Viaggio. The details and pictures are in the below link in the main WFD thread.

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:drooling_face::drooling_face::drooling_face:

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We had another excellent dinner at Viaggio. Details and pictures are in the main WFD thread below.