I have never quite understood how new customers manage to find Rudolfo Ristorante, which is tucked away on a cul-de-sac behind a classic car dealer in a tiny hamlet off the beaten track. Certainly you would never stumble upon it by accident. Yet it has been successful since it opened here nine years ago. Other eateries have opened and closed while Albanian-born owner Rudolfo Hisena has quietly run this upscale restaurant and opened the equally high-end 10 Square in Morristown and the more casual Trattoria Amici in Gladstone and Trattoria Torino in Warren. He obviously has a magic touch. Part of Hisena's business acumen lies in hiring qualified staff; though the faces change frequently, they are consistently well trained and exhibit first-rate credentials.
The latest newcomer to Rudolfo Ristorante is Chef William Auerbacher, who grew up just a few miles away in Mendham. Auerbacher worked with Robert Long at the Frenchtown Inn for five years. After traveling and cooking around the world, he ended up in New York City, where he worked with Charles Palmer at Aureole before serving as executive chef at Nino's on Manhattan's East Side. When he took over the kitchen at Rudolfo Ristorante in early 1999, he brought with him several assistants from the celebrated Ryland Inn.
The restaurant's main dining room is beautifully decorated with heavy, dark-green damask draperies, creating the perfect setting for experiencing Chef Auerbacher's unique Italian cuisine. The standard seafood salad found in many Italian restaurants is lighter here. Tiny rings of squid, shrimp, scallops, and lobster are tossed with bits of avocado in a lemon vinaigrette. A risotto torta comprises a delicious, crisp cake of risotto with white truffles, peas, and leeks and a ragout of mushrooms. A pasta special featuring fresh green-and-white tagliatelle tossed with shrimp, calico scallops, and wild-mushroom broth is absolutely delicious. Also wonderful is a grilled shrimp special accompanied by a tomato stuffed with fresh vegetables and garnished with endive. Neither a mushy, bland crab cake nor an intensely salty Provençale fish soup, though, is my favorite. And a prosciutto-wrapped Sicilian salad, attractively presented with the prosciutto standing like a column and filled with a mixed fresh-vegetable salad topped with goat cheese and garnished with a balsamic syrup, also is unbearably salty.
As for main courses, the excellent sliced sesame-seed-encrusted tuna is served rare over a bed of wasabi whipped potatoes with sugar snap peas and frizzled leeks. I also enjoy the delightful sliced breast of duck with mixed fresh vegetables and sun-dried cherry tomatoes. Pan-roasted halibut topped with mango salsa comes with basmati rice and both red-bell-pepper and green-parsley sauces that decorate the plate in the colors of the Italian flag. A very good rack of lamb is served with a mound of soft polenta with fava beans.
One evening, the specials fall short of the regular menu items. For instance, a very delicious pan-roasted chicken breast in a lemon-artichoke-and-caper sauce, served with mashed potatoes and an artichoke bottom filled with sugar snap peas, is rather skimpy. A veal rib chop is fatty, and the soft-shell crab has a heavy, gummy coating.
The best desserts are the fresh-fruit tart, the crème brûlée, and the warm and melting chocolate cake. Skip the circle of gummy mascarpone mousse filled with fresh fruit. It's not worth the calories. -- V.S.
12 Lackawanna Avenue, Peapack-Gladstone (908-781-1888). Lunch: Tuesday through Friday, 11:30 am to 2:30 pm. Dinner: Monday through Thursday and Sunday, 5 to 10 pm; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 pm. Wheelchair access easy. American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard, Visa. Dinner for two without wine averages $80.