PHOTO: B.A. Nilsson

Dramatic Effect

Tosca Grille

200 Broadway, Troy, 272-3013. Serving dinner Mon-Sat 5-10, brunch Sunday 10-3. AE, D, MC, V.

Cuisine: top-flight creative continental

Entrée price range: $19 (gnocchi Bolognese) to $46 (beef tournedos and seafood Neapolitan)

Ambiance: trés elegant

By B.A. Nilsson

Once upon a time it was a men’s club, one of those fusty assemblies of waning testosterone that flourished in every city during an earlier era. Most of them have evanesced: Schenectady’s Mohawk Club is now the Stockade Inn, and it’s a pleasure to report that the former Troy Club, occupying a handsome corner of the Hendrick Hudson building at Monument Square, has become the Tosca Grille, the fine-dining brainchild of chef Larry Schepici.

Schepici made his culinary mark locally at such white-linen establishments as the Tavern at Sterup Square and Sargo’s; with the Tosca Grille, he was able to design the entire mise en scene, building around the theme of the eponymous heroine best known from Puccini’s opera—and the composer himself peers from one of the murals.

Music plays a key part here, from the instruments that decorate the pillars and walls to the tasteful selections—instrumental works by the likes of Mozart and Beethoven—that play throughout dinner. And it’s fitting to apply musical comparisons to the meal itself. Fine dining is a theatrical experience, and the opera stage is the theatrical pinnacle, so it’s a worthy metaphor for a superior restaurant meal.

Before we get to the overture, then, consider the hall itself. You enter into a space that welcomes you with its soft lights and a gentle susurrus of sound. A mix of dark paneling and pale walls keeps the appearance subdued and attractive. And the tables are large and comfortable.

On to the overture. A well-chosen wine list, many of its selections from Schepici’s personal collection, brings you in at about the $25 mark. Although I was dining with a vegetarian, and thus the red-meat selection would be limited, we agreed on a red—an Australian shiraz—to carry us through the meal.

The menu sits in a price range generous enough to allow the pursuit of the best ingredients and the most appropriate preparations—but, in civilian life, it’s a bit rich for the proletarian likes of me.

Although the offerings are fancy, the foundations are familiar. There’s beef, of course, which appears in three guises (pan-roasted sirloin, $34; roquefort encrusted filet mignon, $42; and a tournedos-and-seafood combo for $46). Veal, pork and lamb dishes also get inventive treatments, and there’s a full complement of fish, such as seafood bianco ($34, a stew of lobster, shrimp, mussels, scallops and more served over pasta), caramelized sea scallops ($26), salmon in a Tahitian Champagne sauce ($24) and the rarely seen Dover sole ($36), a superb fish the allure of which proved too compelling for my dining companion to resist.

“We’ll see if it arrives on the bone,” she said. “That’s the test.”

In fact, it didn’t, but that’s because the presentation far exceeded what we expected. Dover sole is a flat, ugly brute that needs minimal preparation: Rip the skin off its bottom, dredge it in flour, sauté. Decide if the customer should deal with the head and tail. At least, that’s how it was done when I was in the kitchen. Schepici not only eliminates the offal but also decoratively arranges the nacreous flesh that’s left around the garnishes, flowing over the colorfully striated vegetable pavé, a sort of Napoleon of turnips and carrots and such, and pointing to the glistening stack of bright green haricot verts. A subtle finish comes from a grapefruit sauce that carefully tops the dish.

Even a simple dish like crab cakes ($13) gets its own reimagining. As you’d expect, the crabmeat-to-breading ratio tilts generously toward the seafood—in this case, Jonah crab—but the attention grabber here really is the sauce, decorative swirls of an aïoli heated with chipotle, cooled with mango.

You won’t mistake the ingredients in the artichoke and pecorino tart ($9), a starter that serves the purpose of this course by livening the palate with a quick hit of flavor. Artichoke isn’t one of those big-flavored ingredients; vinegar is the usual complement, but Schepici opts instead to enhance the natural flavor with the similarly earthy flavor of pecorino, a sheep’s-milk cheese, nicely rounded with an olive sauce and tomato gremolata.

Although New Zealand seems to have a lock on lamb, the domestic product is typically tastier, borne out in Tosca’s American rack of lamb ($38), a full complement of chops rubbed with honey, then crusted with pistachio, porcini and herbs. Degree of doneness? Let the chef decide, I said, noting my preference for rareness—and rare it came, deliciously so.

A native of Boston, Schepici made his name at fine-dining restaurants in Massachusetts and Vermont, and, among many other awards, won a bronze medal at the international Hotelympia 2000 Salon Culinaire Master Chefs Grand Prix. Accessible and very affable, he seems almost surprised by his own success.

“This is where I want to be, and what I want to do,” he says, proudly surveying the dining room, and there’s no doubt that he’s found a superb place for his top-flight talents.

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