No Reservations - Carmelina’s at the Commons
This summer, talking with friends about favorite Italian restaurants in the area, I got several replies along the lines of, “Well, Carmelina’s, but it’s closed.” Now, after a change in owners, a face-lift and the completion of some serious road work along its Route 9 location in Hadley, CARMELINA’S AT THE COMMONS, at 96 Russell St. (www.carmelinas.com), has reopened for business.
One-third of the new ownership is Carmelina’s former head chef, Martin Amaya; the other two-thirds are Debbie and Dave Windoloski, a Hadley couple who were regulars at the restaurant for over 20 years.
So far, the transition seems to be going smoothly. When I called to make a reservation (not under my name), the voice at the other end asked if I needed anything special –always a nice touch. The road work has added a curb and cut the parking-lot size, but parking was pretty easy. The hostess was friendly. Our server was knowledgeable and skillful, taking the orders for appetizers, wines and entrees without benefit of pen and paper and proceeding to serve everything to the right person. The restaurant has been redone inside, but it’s not dramatically different.
Nothing, in fact, is dramatically different in Carmelina’s latest incarnation. The restaurant was opened in 1985 by Damien DiPaola, who ran it until he sold it to Amaya and the Windoloskis early this year. When I asked Debbie about plans for the restaurant, she had a simple reply: “building new traditions.” The new owners want to keep the flavors and the feeling of the old Carmelina’s the same while making small additions, she said.
DAVE WINDOLOSKI told me that he originally wanted to go to medical school, but instead took a couple of career detours. First he was a professional wrestler - “Dave Darrow from Holyoke” - and then he spent 25 years in sales at Pitney Bowes. Debbie worked at Kollmorgen for 17 years, mostly in marketing communications, before starting Gardenscapes, a garden design business. Between them, they bring the financial and marketing part of the equation to the table.
Chef Martin Amaya will still be doing the cooking, and since his entire cooking career of nearly two decades was spent working with DiPaola, the menu and the execution are likely to endure. Emery Smith is still playing piano every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, just as he has for the last 20 years. In other words, the many longtime regulars at Carmelina’s can expect more of what made them regulars in the first place. But there have been some changes.
Certain favorites, like Crazy Alfredo (chicken, sausage and red peppers in Alfredo sauce) and Pesce Pistachio (ground pistachios baked over the fish of the day), are still on the menu. But in keeping with today’s trends, what was once the appetizer section is called now called piattini, or “small plates,” and the pasta courses can be ordered in half-sizes as piattini or as entrees.
On my recent visit we did just that, ordering a half portion of Pasta Palmeritana, a spicy shrimp special, stuffed mussels in tomato sauce, and a Caesar salad. The Palmeritana was a version of the familiar Sicilian greens dish - spinach, pine nuts and raisins - over angel-hair pasta. I wanted more spinach in mine, but the greens I tasted were good. In the shrimp special, three large shrimp nestled in tomato-caper sauce that was hot enough to be spicy but not so hot that it obscured anything else. The stuffed mussels weren’t broiled or baked in the usual fashion, but cooked in tomato sauce, which made the breading a little too mushy for my taste. My friend Kitty, who is a Caesar salad aficionado, liked the Carmelina’s version, which added crisped prosciutto in place of the anchovies.
The dining room was crowded, even for a Thursday night. On a subsequent Wednesday-night visit, the room was equally crowded. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and a large percentage appeared to have dined at the restaurant in its former incarnation, judging by how many stopped to chat with Amaya as they left.
On another visit we ate at the bar, where I could watch the chefs at work. For me, dinner theater has nothing on watching two line cooks effortlessly handle hot saute pans.
Osso buco ($29) was tender and falling off the bone. Veal saltimbocca ($27) was unusual in that it was a large chop, split and filled with spinach, prosciutto and cheese. My friend Tom ordered the Pesce al Forno, $25, which came with a choice of four fishes - Chilean sea bass, wild salmon, escolar and swordfish. He picked escolar, which we’d never encountered before. Our server called it a cross between striped bass and swordfish, but a softer-fleshed striper might have been closer to the mark. It came with a good hit of garlic in the sauce, one of the few dishes that did.
Carmelina’s has a large wine list, ranging from $20 to $40 for the most part, and leaning, as you would expect, toward Italian wines, with some California and Australian bottles as well. We ordered by the glass, choosing a Pinot Noir, a Chianti, a Guenoc Petite Syrah (our favorite, we decided after passing the glasses around) and a Sicilian wine that was different from others I have tried. Rather than being dense and earthy, this one had an almost sherry-like taste. Wines by the glass hover around $10.
For dessert, we split a tiramisu and a fruit tart with an intensely lemony curd. Desserts at Carmelina’s are in the $6 to $8 range.
The new owners of Carmelina’s are looking to strengthen local ties - joining CISA, or Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, is at the top of their list - but the restaurant already uses area sources. Most of the seafood is from Masse’s in Chicopee. Milk and cream come from Mapleline Farms in Hadley, coffee from Rao’s in Amherst, and herbs from Debbie Windoloski’s organic garden. The wine list is due for reworking, Debbie told me, with more wines by the glass. And the new owners are looking to host wine dinners, Sunday family meals, regional tastings and more.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the crowd. Each time I’ve been in Carmelina’s, the room has been full or nearly so. It is perhaps a little pricey for a neighborhood restaurant, but it’s got a friendly feeling and it’s easy to see why the regulars come back, week after week and sometimes, even, day after day.
Originally published Daily Hampshire Gazette, November 02, 2007
April 10th, 2008 at 10:47 am
With all due respect to the Windoloskis, it was Damien DiPaola who added “piattinis” to the menu in lieu of appetizers. He did it at *least* 4 years ago. You made it sound as though the concept was their idea.