In the Uber on the way over to Eating House, my wife pulled open the menu and cross-referenced it with photos from Instagram and Google Maps. It’s a planned attack that assures we hit the highlights.
But before diving into photos, the Google Maps description (likely scribed by A.I.) caught her eye: “Menu of eclectic, locally sourced dishes in a low-key interior decked with graffiti art.”
In an era when A.I. might replace us all, I’m afraid to say that the description was spot-on. At least for now, though, A.I. is incapable of ingesting food. So, after a night out here, I’d add that everything at Eating House is quite good, as it always has been.
Eating House spent nine years in a spot across town, essentially headquarters for the chef Giorgio Rapicavoli fan club. “Small but mighty,” our editor deemed Eating House when that restaurant's lease ended in 2021. By then, Rapicavoli had spun Luca Osteria, a downtown Gables darling where he works chefy magic on mom’s Italian dishes.
Rapicavoli reopened Eating House this year, a couple of doors down from Luca on a pedestrian-only section of Giralda Avenue. Inside, it feels utterly simple, perhaps purposefully under-designed. It’s mostly just black tables and chairs, no booths or banquettes or pillows, spread out over a beige-tiled dining room decorated, as the A.I. promised, with stark graffiti art and a plant wall behind the bar.
Perhaps the point is to focus on the dishes. The theme at Eating House is simple: Put out delicious things. And they do. The heirloom tomato salad is flavored by fish sauce and covered in an Aspen snowfall of coconut shavings. Cauliflower gets battered and fried and then doused in crema and cotija and crunchy corn.
The carbonara, beefed-up with heritage bacon chunks, explodes with the not-subtle punch of black truffle and an egg yolk oozed through the dish tableside. Chicken and waffles, a dish that almost seems cliche now, arrives with dainty little waffles dotting tender boneless chicken and ranch sauce below.
Desserts here include a couple of things that made Eating House a favorite: the pancakes in vanilla butter and childhood-recalling Cap’N Crunch; and the dirt cup, a super-smooth cream mousse with chocolate cookie crumbles, pretzels and hazelnuts making a memorable combo of flavors and texture.
The dishes, many of them carry-overs from the old space, are reminders of why Eating House became popular. Even without the ambiance of some other trendy restaurants, it seems every single plate Rapicavoli serves up has been deftly designed to taste special. And isn’t that why we all go out to eat: to taste, with all our senses, the imaginative, locally sourced meals created by the hands of a talented chef? Take that, A.I.
