Next Generation
IF PASSERSBY last fall wondered what was going on behind that spiffy new Bocca awning at the intersection of 22nd and Talbott streets, the mirrored blackout windows provided no clues. “Are the lights even on yet?” wondered the drive-by Gladys Kravitzes. Even after the business, a restaurant serving “modern Italian cuisine,” officially opened in the middle of November, it maintained an air of mystery. Yes, the lights were on, though just barely visible.
Bocca’s dusky watt age provides the appropriate mood lighting for a black-tablecloth restaurant with a menu divided into and . Executive chef Ricky Martinez’s molto moderno pastas and elaborate meats are sexy accompaniments to the muted walls, textured glass partitions, and antiqued mirrors rimmed in decorative moss. The chef who made his mark on Indy by heading up the kitchen at Latin-focused Delicia and then went on to develop the menu for Havana Cigar Lounge in Fishers applies his expertise to Bocca’s short list of dishes. He arranges charred octopus—surprisingly plump and meaty—over a bed of whipped potatoes ringed in sweet red pepper oil and recasts basic bruschetta as a sweet starter smoothed with goat cheese mousse, fig jam, and a drizzle of basil-hibiscus reduction. Other ambitious platings range from salmon over red-wine mushroom risotto to roasted chicken with marsala demiglace and kale hash to portobella-stuffed ravioli in vodka cream sauce punctuated with bits of caramelized onion. Perfectly seared scallops float in a dense lemon-butter broth with artichoke hearts and silky sacchetti—little pasta purses filled with smooth, tangy cheese. And braised lamb shank does a high kick off the plate, a succulent hunk of slow-cooked meat that slides right off the bone.
