Update: The restaurant has changed it's name to Enoteca Otto.
Enoteca San Marco is the most approachable of superchef Mario Batali's three Vegas offerings. The newest, Carnevino, is a pricey Italian steakhouse in Palazzo, and the nicest, B&B, is the Vegas version of Batali's acclaimed NY spot Babbo, serving complex yet authentic cuisine from Venetian's casino-level restaurant row. ESM, just upstairs in the faux piazza of Venetian's Grand Canal Shoppes, offers that new Vegas classic of indoor alfresco dining. From this "patio," it's hard to ignore the European street performers, which could be good or bad for your dining experience. You could always seek refuge in the small but classy dining room.
The setting is perfect for the menu, which is designed to allow you to dabble in different wines (100 bottles under a hundred bucks), house-cured meats, imported Italian cheeses and interesting antipasti. You could spend forever on the cheeses, which are priced well for sampling at three for $14, five for $17, or seven for $21. Most of this artisanal formaggi won't be found elsewhere, so have fun tasting six-month old asiago or a two-year old parmagiano reggiano.
Perhaps due to the winter temperatures and hearty appetites they can create, we took the heavy road of pizza and pasta. Enoteca San Marco boasts an expansive selection of both, and a special pizza, pasta and salad option for every day of the week. On this Friday, the pasta of the day was linguine with veal bolognese, tasty enough, and the pizza of the day was a carbonara pie. After much debate, we chose pizza with chunks of pancetta, caramelized onions, tomato and Coach Farm goat cheese (pictured). The crust was thin and chewy, the tomato sauce was surprisingly sweet, but the ultra-creamy cheese took charge masterfully. Next time I'll go for the pizza Vongole, with mozzarella, clams and chili. For my filling entree, I devoured a plate of cavatappi pasta, perfectly al dente hollowed corkscrews, smothered in a rich lamb ragu with just enough mint to make things interesting (also pictured).
It's hard to order at Enoteca San Marco because everything appears so simple and appetizing. The menu is perfectly planned. It is the best place to munch bread, cheese and salami with loads of wine, and the Italian basics of salad, pizza and pasta are individually and artfully composed. And there's meat, too ... dinner options include grilled pork chop, braised pork shoulder with apple reduction, crispy duck, veal and ricotta meatballs, and the Tuscan fish stew Cacciuco. So the lesson is ... careful about which celebrity chefs you hate on, because some of them are really killing it.
Yum.
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