Friday, May 23, 12:00 noon
Members $55, guests $65

When you’re looking for a really good meal, one where the food is the focus and not necessarily the room or the scene, you avoid places that attract a raucous clientele. You know the kind: where the crowd, made up mostly of tall, thin beauties with both hands full, juggling cigarettes, martini glasses, and cell phones, is the real attraction, and the food is nothing more than an afterthought. In Italian, a place like that may be called baraonda, a word that means “a real scene with lots of noise.” The beauty of Baraonda on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is that it serves up the loud, crazy scene right alongside stellar Italian food, so there’s no giving up one for the other. At this gem of a restaurant, Jorge Saldana prepares delicious Roman fare that has regulars, what Citysearch’s Karen Robinovitz referred to as “worldly types speaking French, Italian or Spanish,” coming back for more.

Yes, Baraonda offers a beautiful room with whimsical décor, including inverted colored hat-like light shades, abstract art, and a stunning copper and marble bar, but that’s not what attracts this crowd. They come for fabulous homemade pastas, and for a personal favorite of the Restaurant Report’s J. Walman, the shredded baby artichokes that are quickly sautéed with pistachios, tossed in a lemony vinaigrette and topped with thin slices of Parmesan. No doubt the dish prompted Walman to give the restaurant an A+, calling Baraonda a “perpetually-hot Roman trattoria,” serving “excellent” food.

The credit belongs to the Ecuadorian-born Saldana, who came to New York in 1992 and quickly fell in love with our fair city. He decided to stay, picking up work as a prep cook at Settemezzo. He stayed for four years, ultimately rising through the ranks from line cook to sous-chef. He took on the same post at Frico, a Bastianich property, until meeting up with Enrico Proietti, the owner of Baraonda. Saldana has been its executive chef for four years, serving fine Italian fare prepared with great skill and care, and, much to the dismay of the in-crowd, very little fanfare. Now that’ s our kind of scene.