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Business & Tech

Acquaviva delle Fonti Winks at Tradition, Favors Creativity

Food critic Andrew Lipstein reviews an Italian restaurant on Elm Street.

Acquaviva delle Fonti, which translates to "living water of the fountain," claims to be "named for a town near the Lazio region of Northern Italy." However, the only Acquaviva delle Fonti on the map is in the Southwest province of Bari, and Lazio itself is on the west coast of central Italy. Despite the geographical mystification, the food of the restaurant Acquaviva is unmistakably brilliant and one-of-a-kind. If you want Italian, but you're looking to escape the heaps of pasta, red sauce, and chicken parm., look no further.

The restaurant creates a dining experience that takes you out of Westfield and into the carefully arranged "Italian Restaurant" – minimally apportioned wall art, wine bottles that weren't purchased to open, and waiters whose feet seem to never touch the ground. Acquaviva has four dining rooms, named like a daytime spa and salon: Il Scogliera ("the cliff"), Il Capanna ("the cabin"), Il Piazza ("the public square") and Il Villa ("the villa").

To start, we ordered a lobster bisque and arugula salad. The bisque was described as having "lobster meat, cream, splash of Scotch Whisky." It was delicious, with a beautiful golden-yellow ochre color and some of the most finely cooked lobster I have tasted. The arugula, meanwhile, was the right salad for the meal ahead: light, faintly sweet and mouth-watering.

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For the main course, diners can choose from dishes that stand out in their own right. Each offering has three to six marquee ingredients that suggest a great deal of thought was put into every dish. We ordered the Acquaviva delle Fonti Milanese (veal scallopini), spiced duck breast and stuffed rainbow trout.

The veal scallopini came with a pile of arugula, some tomato, red onion, Parmagiano Regiano and Balsamic vinaigrette. The meat, itself, was well-cooked, and the breading offered a unique flavor that did not overpower the veal's.

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The duck breast was a dish I will not forget soon. Typical of Lazio cuisine, the fat of the duck was the focus of the protein. The meat was tender, and maple jus dripped from every bite. Below the duck was a pile of Beluga lentils and spinach. The lentils were tasty in a way I didn't know lentils could be, and the spinach was cooked to perfection in a way I have failed at numerous times in my own kitchen. Finally, a Bartlett poached pear was cut and fanned at one end of the duck, creating the illusion of a tail. It looked quirky, sure, but tasted brilliant.

The rainbow trout was cut open and left to blanket even portions of crab, spinach and sun dried tomatoes. The Piccatta sauce complimented the trout well, which was almost perfectly cooked. To the side of the fish was a pile of finely mashed sweet potatoes and two triangular polenta cakes. The mash was uniquely seasoned and delicious, the polenta not so much – but those with a greater affinity for cornmeal would probably disagree.

Acquaviva is a unique and authentic Italian restaurant, both in terms of its cuisine and its atmosphere. Will it replace the Friday night Ferraro's/Cosimo's routine? Probably not. But the menu escapes cliché and strives to serve new flavor combinations, which is certainly overdue.

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