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When you sit down to eat a dish," Felice said, "you eat with your eyes first. en you eat with your nose. en you dive in. We cut it with a lemon butter that's super rich. When you first try it, that Calabrian chili hits the back of your throat and it feels like it's going to be too spicy. en it gets washed away with that smooth lemon butter." It's true, the apps and pastas are bold and creative—the sort of thing we expect from Felice at this point. Rather than simply piggyback off Viaggio's menu, Felice wanted to do some hip, new things. Whether you're eating at a hidden gem in the back streets of Florence or right in Wayne at Viaggio, you'll notice couples and friends picking at each other's dishes or practically trading entrées at the midway point. is concept of community is one embedded into the identity of Osteria Crescendo: sharing plates, discussing food, etc. "Anyone can open a restaurant and simply put the basics on the menu. You have to ask yourself, what's going to set this restaurant apart from the one down the street? I wanted all these large-scale entrées to have a WOW factor," he said. "If someone is coming into my restaurant and spending $80 on one of these shared dishes, it has to be exciting." Felice has designed these entrées to be show-stoppers, and the Branzino and Polpo Fritto (fried octopus) are just that. And though it may almost seem typical to have an octopus or branzino on an Italian menu, the fish and octopus are whole. And these almost too beautiful to eat sea monsters are quick to garner those, "Oh my god" moments when they hit the table. "I always want to do something that no one else is doing," Felice said. "When we opened Viaggio I put octopus on the menu as an appetizer, which is what everyone does. It's a pretty safe and textbook move. When we were testing recipes one day, I said, 'You know what, I'm just going to serve a whole fucking octopus.' Literally all my cooks' eyes lit up. Seeing that reaction means, 'Hey, that's it!' at's exactly the reaction I wanted." "I hit the books and started to figure out how I wanted to go about doing it. I love throwing in little twists. We fry the whole octopus and add a sort of Asian influence with the tempura. e octopus gets braised from four to six hours to make it insanely tender. Staying true to the super simple Italian style, we're taking this beautiful product and doing something crazy/cool with it: putting it on the plate so it almost looks like it's swimming." e Polpo Fritto stays true to those rustic vibes, with a classic eggplant puttanesca where you really get a taste of the old country. e modern twist—other than the obvious—are little dots of citrus gel on top, so you get a bit of lemon with every bite to play off the puttanesca. "When you sit down to eat a dish," Felice said, "you eat with your eyes first. Then you eat with your nose. Then you dive in." V U E N J . C O M 109

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