The focus has shifted to Italian food at this restaurant tucked on West Mechanic Street in New Hope, Pa.

By: Richard Burns

Esca

18 W. Mechanic St.

New Hope, Pa.

(215) 862-7099

www.escarestaurant.com



Food: Excellent

Service: Very good

Prices: Moderate

Cuisine: Italian with a touch of Brazil

Ambience: Pleasant and informal

Hours: Dinner: Tues.-Thurs. 5-9:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5-10:30 p.m., Sun. 2-9:30 p.m.

Essentials: Accepts major credit cards; not wheelchair accessible; smoking section available in the bar area; full liquor license; reservations recommended weekends.

Directions

   About two years ago, I reviewed Esca, a Brazilian/South American restaurant on West Mechanic Street in New Hope. It was a joy of a restaurant with unusual and excellent food. We returned a number of times.
   While Esca is still there, it is now quite a different restaurant. However, it remains a first-class place to have dinner. The restaurant has been sold and it now serves mostly Italian fare. It bills itself as "Italian and more" and indeed, it is.
   The new owners, Federico Scotto and Lee Gray, are veterans of Italian restaurants. Both worked at Carlucci’s in Lower Makefield and say they bring a passion for Italian food and a commitment to ensuring that their restaurant provides the best of this popular cuisine. To insure this, Esca’s former chef, Wayne Surline, a graduate of the Johnson and Wales culinary program, helped to create the menu before moving on. In addition, a chef from Italy has been in residence working with the new chef, Sean Comber, to make sure that all Italian dishes are authentic. Finally, and to their credit, the new owners have retained a few dishes from the Brazilian menu.
   The restaurant itself is still physically the same. It sits at the bottom of a long flight of stone stairs leading to what was once a mule barn with an adjacent house when the Delaware Canal was functioning. In the summer, the grounds are planted in an attractive outdoor garden. The restaurant consists of a good-sized entry room and a large dining room to the right. In the center is a large circular fireplace, originally used for heating horseshoes. In its previous incarnation, this room was quite dark (except for one bright yellow wall) with the ceiling painted a dark blue. The room has been repainted in much lighter colors and strings of small lights create a much more attractive setting. Behind the entry is a pleasant bar and beyond that a large covered patio for outdoor dining when weather permits.
   The menu, which changes with the seasons, is fairly small for an Italian restaurant, although the owners say they are capable and willing to make most special dishes to order if requested. The menu consists of about half-a-dozen appetizers, a soup of the day ($7), several salads ($6-8), a half-dozen pasta dishes ($17-$18) and about an equal number of entrées. The night we visited, there were another three or four pasta specials available.
   The range of choices offered offsets the limited number of options the menu provides. Since there were four guests with us when we were there, we were able to sample many of the offerings. The fritto di calamari ($10) served with a marinara sauce was one of the best of this favorite that we have found. The calamari was tender and moist with just the right crispness on the outside. It was a superb dish. The waiter offered to make up an antipasto platter for the table for as many as we wanted. We asked that it be done for three ($18) and it was a good thing we did not asked for six — there was plenty of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, salami, roasted mushrooms, peppers and eggplant to go around.
   One of the special pasta dishes sounded so good that we ordered one for the table. It was farfalle, or bowtie, pasta ($17) with a homemade chicken sausage, arugula and cheese in a light tomato sauce — a great dish. Our "almost 13-year-old" guest, Sammi, zeroed in on the homemade fresh gnocchi in a fresh tomato sauce ($17). She knows her pasta and was more than delighted with the lightness and taste of the dish. We were barely able to talk her into giving us a taste.
   One of our guests wanted to try the veal saltimbocca ($23), but the restaurant was out of veal that night; a bit unusual since we were there early. She settled for the chicken saltimbocca ($19) and thought it was quite good. Another guest chose the chicken Milanese ($19) and while it was all right, it was a bit dry. Rose made one of the best choices of the evening with the tonno alla puttanesca ($21), a grilled tuna steak with chopped tomato, black olives, capers and onions. The tuna was sushi-grade and the taste proved it. It was cooked medium rare and was very tender, moist and delicious — one of the best we have sampled.
   Another choice was the paella ($25), from the Brazilian menu. Our guest asked that it be made with the homemade chicken sausage and this combined nicely with the shrimp and other shellfish and the rice. She was very pleased with the dish. I selected the other of the holdover Brazilian dishes, the sautéed crab cakes with an orange basil aioli ($23). The crab cakes were finely seasoned, good-sized, crisp on the outside and moist on the inside with lots of crab. The sauce was an excellent complement. In addition to these entrées, a grilled filet mignon topped with gorgonzola cheese in a Barolo red wine demi-glaze ($29) made a tempting offering.
   All the desserts are made in house, except for the cheesecake. We ordered cheesecake ($7) for our young guest, a cannoli ($8) and lemon bars ($7). All were excellent. We passed on a decadent chocolate cake, but were glad to see they have not neglected the chocolate lovers.
   Our waiter, Marty, is a veteran of the business and was very friendly and helpful while seeing to our needs. Later in spring, the restaurant plans to have Italian and folk music on Thursday evenings.
   We enjoyed the new Esca a great deal. The Italian dishes were, with one exception, top-flight, and the two carry-over Brazilian dishes were a welcome alternative. One hopes they will continue that approach and keep a few things on the menu that are not widely available elsewhere.