Dinner at Fornino

Brooklyn is full of pizza joints. From corner joints with checkered table cloths to artisinal restaurants with wood burning ovens, at times it seems like you can't walk a block without coming across a new and exciting option. After spending an afternoon wandering about Park Slope, we decided to embrace the local cuisine, and try some pizza at Fornino.

Fornino is neighborhood Italian restaurant, with a wide ranging menu of family favorites, but we decided to keep it simple and share a few dishes, to complement our pizza: an arugula salad, some risotto balls, and a Funghi Pizza with tellegio cheese and truffle oil. 

The wine menu was replete with Italian wines, options which still leave us slightly baffled. Normally, when eating more than one course, we might try a few different glasses to try to match the different flavors. But, we were in a bit over our heads with the wine options, and our waitress was new and couldn't offer many suggestions, so we decided to wing it, and just order a bottle. With our limited experience with Italian wine, we have had a few wines from the Umbria region with a bit of "funky" flavors which we thought might go well with the earthiness of the mushrooms and the cheese, so we ordered a bottle of Orvieto Classico.

In a case like this, all that mattered to us was that the wine wasn't corked. The first taste shocked us though, revealing a crisp white wine with a funky undertone. There were bitter flavors of flowers and ash that really complemented the bitter arugula of the salad, but were really too powerful for the risotto balls. There were the funky flavors that we had expected that matched the mushrooms in the pizza, but there was also a hint of sweet fruit that brought out a hint of sweetness from the cheese. In all, a wonderful pairing, and helped us linger over our meal.

It's wonderful when we can be so pleasantly surprised. An unassuming storefront revealed a wonderful little restaurant. And a long and complicated wine list revealed a rich and complex bottle. But we really need to work on learning more about Italian wines!