Puccini Ristorante
Rhinebeck’s hidden treasure
ON A QUIET street, at the very end, lies a secret garden accompanying the village of Rhinebeck’s best-kept culinary secret: Puccini Ristorante.
Two key words define Puccini best: local and family.
Owner Sam Millian lives in Woodstock and executive chef Adam Monteverde, a 2004 CIA grad, was raised there.
Sam’s wife Mary Millian is hostess and twin daughters Sylana and Alexandra serve. Oldest daughter, Marin, also helps when the restaurant is extremely busy, which it often is.
Sam said Puccini appeals to local people, some who dine there three to four times a week.
“Local is better,” Mary said. “We help each other out and people like the family-run concept.”
“We treat everyone like family,” Sam said. “Some families come here all the time,” he added.
“Rhinebeck has a lot of restaurants, but most are bistros or trattorias,” Sam said. “Puccini is an old-style, upscale restaurant for a special night out.”
The name, Puccini, he said, was selected to reflect that sensibility.
“He wasn’t a very nice man, but he wrote glorious opera,” Sam said, as strains from “Tosca” played softly in the background.
The simple, but elegantly furnished dining room has framed Art Nouveau-styled posters of Puccini’s most famous operas: “Tosca,” “La boheme,” “Madama Butterfly” and “Turandot.”
“We wanted to keep the Puccini theme going with the décor,” Mary said.
Just a few steps outside the dining room is a patio, with cheerful red umbrellas. The dining room seats 40, with another 24 outside.
Open a little over two years, Puccini is the Millian family’s first restaurant. Asked why he selected Rhinebeck, Sam said the village “seemed like an up-and-coming area that would welcome a restaurant like this.”
Sam said, however, he and Monteverde have discovered diners are not yet savvy about authentic Italian cuisine.
“It’s been our pleasure to introduce people to regional dishes they won’t experience elsewhere,” he said.
Sam said every dish is an authentic, “Mom and Pop” regional entity. “These are recipes from Mary’s family, handed
down from generation-to-generation,” Sam said.
Dishes at Puccini abound with the flavors of Sicily, Bologna, Roma, Venice, Calabria, Genoa and elsewhere, he said.
“You just can’t find these recipes anymore,” Sam said. “Not in a cookbook, anyway.”
Sam said Puccini uses only tomatoes grown in the San Marzano region, “the best in all of Italy!” He said they’re government certified, like the best regional wines, and bear the “DOC” certification label.
Asked who cooks, Sam shrugged, smiled and said, “I cook. Adam cooks.
We have the same style.”
In the long, rectangular, exceptionally neat – and hot – kitchen, Monteverde was making fresh mozzarella. It’s a precise process, but in Monteverde’s hands, it seemed simple.
“We have a philosophy,” Monteverde explained. “We start with zero. We end with zero. Every day,” he said.
“Everything is fresh,” Monteverde said. “Fresh mozzarella. Fresh marinara. Fresh ingredients. Every day.”
Monteverde provided the recipe for veal saltimbocca, which, he said, literally means “jump in the mouth!”
The menu is creative, with extensive daily specials. Some selections are available in half and full portions; some can be prepared gluten-free. Sam said desserts, such as panna cotta and tiramisu, are made in the Puccini kitchen. A few others, such as ricotta cheesecake, are made locally, especially for Puccini. He said Monteverde also makes his own lemon-cello and orange-cello.
Sam said stars on the menu, among many, are mozzarella in carrozza, carpaccio di polpo, appetizers; rigatoni buterra, pasta; chicken pagliacci, veal saltimbocca, and bronzino vernaccia, entrees, with invaltini di melanzane, as a vegetarian entrée.
If you want to know the menu translations from Italian, you’ll just have to visit Puccini for yourselves. But, the best translation is “delicious!”
Puccini Ristorante, located at 22 Garden St., Rhinebeck, is open for dinner, Tuesday-saturday, 5-10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday brunch, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and Sunday dinner, 4-9 p.m. Closed Monday.
Further information may be obtained by calling (845) 876-3055 or visit www.puccinirhinebeck.com.