Yesica Ramos
Shrimp and a lemon on a white rectangular plate.
The spuntino (“snacks”) menu includes a pretty row of shrimp spiedini.
Imagine a supernova, some sort of brilliant detonation that cleared out all the interior walls of the former Pasqual’s Cantina at Hilldale while turning the exterior to glittering glass. Boom, you’ve invented Amara.
The third restaurant from Rule No. One Hospitality Group (Lucille, Merchant), Amara may be a dramatic tonal shift for this end of Hilldale, but one in keeping with Hilldale’s polished vibes. Its Amalfi Coast aesthetic — think bright, acidic and seafood-centric — unlocks a menu not found in many Madison kitchens. Light fixtures evoking oranges and fishing baskets reinforce the point.
An open dining room is minimally broken up by a triangular decorative space made by the backs of two rows of banquette seats, and here a lush planter sits as a visual centerpiece. The backlit bar, extending almost to the high ceiling, provides jewel-tone brilliance in a space already seemingly designed to draw in and drink up every drop of exterior light.
Ambience is the center of the Amara experience. It is a restaurant that wants to be seen. And it is indeed beautiful, but glamor alone doesn’t cook the pasta.
I enjoyed the bucatini nero, with inky black pasta cooked to a springy al dente and topped decadently with squid and shaved lobster roe, well enough. Its ’nduja gave it appreciable spice. A special of delicate onion- and potato-filled agnolotti was paired with tender chunks of braised lamb.
If the cacio e pepe, made here with knobby ribbons of mafaldine pasta, was a little mac-and-cheesy, it was at least good mac and cheese. Just spendy. And spinach and ricotta gnocchi with fried sage may be a classic recipe, but it landed a bit blandly. Fortunately, pasta dishes are available in half as well as whole portions, if you’re looking to hedge your bets.
On the whole, the menu should please vegetarians reasonably well, though vegan dining may be more of a challenge.
The “spuntino” (“snack” or “light meal”) section of the menu offers smaller but still shareable plates. The grill char is nice on the shrimp spiedini. Gigante beans are a simple starter bite, tenderly cooked and with a zip of acidic giardiniera. Baby fried mozzarella might make you think of cheese curds, but they’re hefty enough that it didn’t feel overly precious to cut them in half.
Lunch appears to be a hit with families, at least on the weekend. Easily a half dozen kids of various ages dotted the dining room one Sunday. The kids’ menu seems fun and diverse. A confit tuna salad for the grownups was generously portioned with delicately cooked tuna, but perhaps too generously dressed. The oily tonnato sauce pooled at the bottom of the plate.
A variety of bruschetta are presented with griddled bread for self-scooping, which keeps that sourdough from getting soggy. Smoky eggplant caponata was surprisingly dark in color, not what I expected but satisfying. The stracciatella and crab bruschetta provided contrast, all fresh and milky cheese with strands of lightly briny crab. If you prefer your bread and toppings integrated, a heap of winter vegetable panzanella with crispy cubes of sourdough, brown butter sherry vinaigrette, and Asian pear filled every inch of those plate/bowl hybrids seemingly designed specifically for giant salads.
The crispy skin porchetta had just rolled over from its winter to spring iterations, and what I received was a massive disc of truth in advertising. Juicy to the center, and ringed in the kind of blistered surface that a food influencer would be legally compelled to drag their knife across just for the sound, this was easily two meals worth of porchetta. A brightly acidic tapenade, in which I found no olives but plenty of similarity to giardiniera, balanced all that richness adeptly.
At the end of what can be a substantial meal, dessert has to really earn your attention. Burnt ricotta cake immediately tempted me, but with an already bitter layer of caramelization on top, the extreme bitterness of candied citrus compote was too much to enjoy — and I’m a Campari guy, I love bitter Italian things.
Meanwhile, Amara’s caramelized white chocolate budino resisted going candy-sweet. Raspberries broke it up with tartness, and crushed hazelnuts offered nutty warmth and texture. It was the least pretty dish we were served, dolloped into a double rocks glass, but it did exactly what it needed to do.
Amara is a big restaurant with big ambitions. Even with an equally big staff, there were times when we were overlooked as servers milled and hovered around us without a glance. But during another meal, our server was warmly, even affectionately attentive. Balancing sweet and bitter can be a neat trick, but sometimes all sweet is just fine.
Amara
670 N. Midvale Blvd.
608-716-7989; amaramadison.com
11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sun.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat.
$9-$45
