Ryan Wisniewski
The duck liver pastrami is a highlight of chef Mangano’s salumi board.
Madison has lost some noteworthy Italian restaurants in the 11 years that Osteria Papavero has been open: Nostrano, Peppino’s, Bellini, Gino’s. The last three were operated by members of one family of brothers, in a beautifully Italian kind of way. But Francesco Mangano’s Osteria Papavero has been there through it all, quietly seated in a commuter-heavy stretch of East Wilson and comfortable as old leather.
What brings diners back over the years, quality or familiarity? Is the budino di caramello deserving of repeated praise, or does everyone just remember loving it back around the turn of the decade?
I’ll get that one out of the way right away: the budino di caramello is still amazing. It is presented as simply as any pudding you’d make on the stovetop at home, with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cocoa powder, but Papavero makes it silky smooth with just the right proportion of sweet to salty. A perfectly fine butterscotch pudding can be made at home, but if you can make it as Osteria Papavero does, start charging admission.
It’s not always easy to predict what will become a classic menu item. In Isthmus’ original 2006 review of Osteria Papavero, there’s only one sentence praising the cinghiale, Papavero’s standby of wild boar ragout over pappardelle. I’m not sure this dish has left the menu for more than a couple minutes in a decade, if at all. Tender hunks of boar are almost more beefy than porcine. Mangano, a 2016 semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef: Midwest award, brings both brightness and umami richness to the dish with a well-developed tomato gravy.
The norcina has appeared on the menu irregularly over the years, perhaps driven by the fluctuating cost of the insane (for Madison) volume of truffle in the dish. It’s another simple, rustic dish, just sausage and cream sauce over pasta, but so wildly flavorful I could be convinced to pay quite a bit more for it.
And then you encounter the gramigna. This intensely funky dish demonstrates that Mangano’s grasp of “simple” pasta dishes can extend to more complicated realms. The namesake pasta, sort of a curly bucatini but tubular like macaroni, transports just enough sauce in each bite. House guanciale (pork jowl) and cave-aged pecorino establish the earthy, nutty and pleasantly gamey flavors of the dish.
Mangano’s salumi game, as demonstrated by the guanciale, is very much on point. Three sizes of salumi board promise to keep you reaching across your tablemates’ airspace to grab that last piece of lonzo, or a stunning bit of duck liver pastrami.
Where Osteria Papavero sometimes struggles is with less manipulated cuts of meat, those neither cured nor chopped and ground. Two of the three meats on my grigliata mista (“mixed grill,” components of which rotate regularly) were tough and chewy; a spicy chicken thigh easily bested the beef tenderloin and bone-in lamb shoulder steak.
That said, the menu at Papavero offers so many dishes that change from day to day that it’s kind of like the saying about Wisconsin weather: If you don’t see what you like on the menu, wait a day. There are gnocchi on the regular menu, but also ultra-soft gnocchi made out of bread and spinach on the specials board. They barely hold together (frankly, I might not have called them gnocchi if not prompted by the menu) but with sweet corn cream, pea tendrils and bacon lardons, this was a supremely seasonal dish and a riot of early summer flavor. Also on that specials board was a plate of tempura-esque fried squash blossoms (fiori di zucca) that were maybe a bit too much batter and not enough blossom, but still fun and visually appealing.
Papavero’s burrata comes with a very generous portion of arugula, tomato and anchovy. It’s a no-brainer on the appetizer section.
So, a funny side story. Back in June, I took one of those DNA analysis tests, and the results came in just before my first review visit to Osteria Papavero. To my great surprise, I found myself almost 15 percent Italian.
One Italian friend welcomed me to “the tribe.” She even called me paisano. Another said 15 percent was probably Italian enough to join the Italian Workmen’s Club, though truth be told, I’ve never done a day of Italian work in my life.
Spending a couple hours at Osteria Papavero for dinner is the kind of Italian work I’m familiar with, and after 11 years of Francesco Mangano’s homey Italian fare it’s still a pleasure.
Osteria Papavero
128 E. Wilson St., 608-255-8376, osteriapapavero.com, 11 am-2 pm and 5-9 pm Mon.-Thurs., 11 am-2 pm and 5-10 pm Fri., 5-10 pm Sat., $7 - $33
