Sportello is also a bakery/take-out restaurant, so there are six desserts. We stuck with chocolate. The first, chocolate budino ($8): pudding in a crust of exquisite chocolate cookie crumbs, flawed only by a little too much sea salt. Chocolate ginger cake ($8) was more like chocolate spice cake, but with an exquisite balance of chocolate and spice, mascarpone underneath, and a few shreds of Asian pear on one side, candied ginger on the other.
"Sportello" means "counter" in Italian, and that's exactly what you'll find — long, white ones, at which you'll find yourself seated right next to fellow diners. The odd layout makes service tricky, but the servers have mastered it. You get to your seat by going behind the cash register and counter of the bakery, and so does your server, sometimes. Water is frequently refilled, and our server was knowledgeable without losing the informality of the place — present without hovering.
The atmosphere at lunch is more active, though on a recent early Friday night visit, the crowds were kept at bay. (Drink seems to be doing better.) The diners are young, and if they don't know everything about the food, they know what they like by the time they are finished eating. The background music runs to remixes of '70s and '80s hits, which nicely crosses several generation gaps. Does this prove that Lynch's full-tilt destination restaurant will thrive even in these difficult times? It's hard to say, but even if the answer is no, it's worth a trip to Sportello.
Robert Nadeau can be reached atRobtNadeau@aol.com.
