Swanky, stylish Fat Ox has a big buzz and even bigger prices
To those who have deeply ingrained, traditional notions of what Italian cuisine should be, and who shudder when an Italian menu isn’t based on a paucity of ingredients treated in the simplest manner possible without fuss ... stop reading. Still here? OK, let’s talk about Fat Ox. The quandary in approaching chef Matt Carter’s new modern Italian restaurant is that diners — myself included — tend to bring a lot of baggage to the table when pasta, prosciutto and polenta are involved. And while a string of (mostly) successes have cemented Carter’s place as one of the Valley’s most formidable chefs and restaurateurs, his M.O. is to develop menus with an implicit “Inspired by ...” on the cover. The Mission, Zinc Bistro and the House Brasserie are filled with dishes that share ingredients and techniques with the cuisines from which they’re derived, but with a decidedly American bent. Fat Ox is much the same. And for better or worse, it deserves to be considered for what it is.
It is not Nonna’s trattoria.
Mark Drinkwater and Brian Raab have teamed with Carter to turn the space that pre-
viously housed Davanti Enoteca (and the Quilted Bear for 782 years before that) into a fully Scottsdale-ified hot spot. The cars out front are expensive, the crowd inside is deafening, the lights in the dining room are dim, the prices range from spendy to jaw-dropping, and the evening might be closed out by a table full of NFL stars whooping and hollering as they play quarters (this happened).
It is gorgeously designed.
To the extent one can see it (see: dim lights, above), Fat Ox is a satiny smooth, streamlined beauty of a restaurant made of sanded wood and taut leather, like an ultrapremium international first-class lounge with a staff that’s dressed to match.
It is not for those who wish to be left alone.
Service is attentive, sharp and friendly, but long-winded to a fault. Detailed walk-throughs of the menu with extended descriptions of every dish appear to be standard operating procedure. On one occasion, my companions and I all but finished an entire tableful of antipasti in the time it took our server to tell us — unprompted — about the pastas.
It is a fine place to sip a pricey cocktail.
Don’t Drinkwater ($17) turns gin into a clean concoction sporting cucumber and Lillet, while Lo Stivale ($12) brings a light, citrusy zip and a whiff of rosemary to the same spirit. Bulleits Over Bordeaux ($13), enriched with Bordeaux syrup, turns rye whiskey into a charming wino. But Fat Ox Bellini ($19), which carries the same sticker shock as Venice’s famed Harry’s Bar original without its beguiling freshness, is best left undisturbed.
It is not a traditional Italian restaurant.
Though Fat Ox follows a conventional road map — antipasti, pastas and meaty secondi — the dishes’ particulars are anything but. Carter’s menu, overseen on a day-to-day basis by executive chef Rochelle Daniel, draws from a broad palette of ingredients and paints multicolored dishes with detailed flourishes that traditionalists are more likely to find overly busy.
It is, nonetheless, home to many successful dishes.
Calabrian roasted cauliflower ($12) is a dual preparation contrasting fiery florets with a smooth, cool puree beneath, accented with crisp shavings of celery and fennel and Barolo salumi. The same Barolo might join coppa, prosciutto, pancetta, ‘nduja and more on a well-sourced chef’s board ($15 a person) that brims with light and luscious slivers of cured meat. Fatty slabs of cotechino sausage ($12) hit a rare, unctuous, peasantfriendly note, gently spiced and served atop stewed lentils with onions, carrots and a restrained touch of balsamic.
It is not entirely confident in its use of acid.
A salad of fingerling potatoes, celery and radicchio ($12) needs more preserved lemon to pop, while another of grilled Brussels sprouts ($12) with pancetta, Gorgonzola and pomegranate falls similarly flat. But mussels ($12 small, $22 large) with ‘nduja in a thin tomato sauce hit an oddly puckering level of sourness; and all pastas are cooked with wine, lending them a prominent acidity that sometimes works but is often distracting.
It is variably successful with its house-pulled cheeses.
A sweet, creamy burrata di bufala ($15) gets a tangle of prosciutto, a smear of verdant arugula basil. But the mozzarella ($15), with bitter radicchio and a dash of fennel pollen, is dense and shy on salt.
It is not the place to
load up on carbs.
In a welcome nod to tradition, pastas are modestly sized, some especially so. Casoncelli ($15) — pinkiesize packets of squashstuffed pasta served seven to a plate — are among the best, candy sweet and dusted with grated amaretti cookies, with a dab of grainy mustard for contrast. A handful of ricotta-stuffed green tortellini ($16) are perfectly crafted but dubiously paired with pea tendrils that are beautiful to behold and difficult to eat, then peppered with tiny fermented cranberries that throw off the dish’s balance, carrying enough salty punch for an entire plate in every pea-size package.
It is a fine destination for those who like their pastas saucy.
In Italy, the pasta is the centerpiece, its condiment an accent. This is rarely the case at Fat Ox. Though paired with a densely layered and dangerously sweet chicken and vin santo ragu, Carter’s cavatelli ($18) are quiet bystanders as a wildly delicious mix of capers, olives and almonds steal the show. His lamb verde ragu ($18) is a seductive concoction, taming the meat’s gentle gaminess with tart green tomatoes rather than red. Finished with pecorino and fennel pollen, the dish is a delight that could be downright devastating if the pasta — a pile of meek rigatoni — had a little more body.
It is not a paragon of pasta consistency.
Fat Ox produces all but one of its pastas in-house, and more often than not, they arrive soft and overcooked. Garganelli ($22) in a truffle-laced Parmesan fonduta with slivers of salty speck could be a winner if the pasta didn’t surrender its texture to the sauce. While tomatobathed strozzapreti ($15) — the lone import — possessed perfect bite on one visit, they were nearly limp on a second and downright textureless on a third. The linguine with clams ($18) also succeeds or fails depending on the pasta’s texture, though ‘nduja, white wine and tart dried tomatoes are three bright accents stacked on top of a tomato sauce that’s already too acidic.
It is a boon to those who prefer their secondi big and meaty.
A Duroc pork tomahawk ($32) is as sweet and juicy as it is large, a lightly glazed chunk of premium pig paired with shaved fennel and apples. Steaks are substantial (and substantially priced), and even a lighter protein like Hokkaido scallops ($35) go big, piled with sunchokes and trumpet mushrooms. The short rib alla vaccinara ($35), however, gets far too cute with the classic Roman oxtail stew for which it’s named, reinventing the simple, hearty braise as a precisely plated, deconstructed modern dish that sacrifices the original’s flavor in pursuit of a pretty plate.
It is not priced for value-conscious diners.
And that’s putting it diplomatically. Though the 28ounce, dry-aged prime porterhouse is a fine steak, its $110 price tag is pushing into territory usually occupied by finer. I’ll defend the $36 chicken at Tratto, but I’m disinclined to do the same for the $60 roastedchicken at Fat Ox. When you’re dropping $17 on a tableside Caesar that tastes of little but lemon; it’s hard not to wish they’d at least crack an egg to make it. And when a $10 order of “charred broccoli raab” is, quite literally, a scant few 1inch sprigs of greenery hiding in a cup of overcooked beans, “misleading” would be a charitable characterization of the menu description.
It is replete with sweets.
Desserts ($9) include an affogato that’s more of a coffee-flavored milkshake. The gianduja Frangelico tiramisu is a deliciously dense bar of roasted bananas and espresso gelato, despite being the antithesis of the dessert for which it’s named. A delicately sweet Meyer lemon tart boasts a light and gently torched meringue cap, though you might need power tools to get through the crust beneath. And those who seek a simple finish will enjoy the Bronte pistachio gelato, spruced up with nothing more than a light dusting of pistachio crumble.
So, where does this leave us?
Fat Ox is not, perhaps, the restaurant many had hoped for — myself included, after an excellent first visit when it opened last November.
Fat Ox is, however, sometimes compelling when accepted on its own terms, as a stylish Scottsdale hot spot more inspired by than beholden to the norms of Italian cuisine.
Ironically, the best way to enjoy Fat Ox may be to disabuse yourself of the notion that it’s Italian. As an American restaurant, it still needs work, but it’s a gorgeous space and Carter has assembled too many bold, flavorful dishes to dismiss the good.
For those like me who probably should have stopped after the first sentence, dining at Fat Ox can be a maddening experience. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t sometimes delicious.