Review: Osteria Umbra in Smithtown

Italian restaurants namechecking Tuscany are a dime a dozen, but you don’t often encounter ones that declare their allegiance to Umbria, the landlocked region just southeast of its more famous neighbor.

Marco Pellegrini was born and raised in Foligno, a small city cradled in Umbria’s Valle Umbra ("shadowed valley"), and he wants every diner to know it. Pellegrini serves his homemade bread and focaccia in Umbrian olive-wood bowls, offers tastes of award-winning olive oil from Trevi and stocks a cellar of Umbrian wines that is probably unequaled on Long Island — including some made exclusively for the restaurant. (There are also plenty of Super Tuscans and bottles from the Piedmont.)

Pellegrini moved to the U.S. in 2014 to run Caci North Fork in Southold, which closed in 2018. Two years later, the chef teamed up with brothers Daniel and Stephen Bragoli to transform Smithtown’s Asian Buffet into a sprawling restaurant-bar-lounge whose blingy décor is counterbalanced by a massive, wood-burning rotisserie-grill where slowly revolving birds and beasts lend their drippings to waiting pans of vegetables directly below.

Among the treasures that issue from the grill are veal and pork chops, rack of venison and a few steaks, the king of which is the "Fiorentina" for two, 32 ounces of porterhouse with arugula, Parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegar.

More fanciful creations include skewers of breadcrumb-crusted calamari and a Caprese salad topped with basil sorbetto.

Pellegrini’s wife, Sabrina Vallorini, creates all the pastas here, from the delicate basil-tinted ravioli stuffed with burrata and ricotta (a warm-weather dish) to the heartier veal tortelloni with veal sauce to the restaurant’s signature, taglierini tossed with cheese and flambéed in a wheel of Parmesan which is prepared tableside. Vallorini also creates all the desserts, from a deep-dish tiramisu with hazelnut praline to one of Long Island’s only traditional chocolate soufflés.

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