Intermezzo

In Chelsea, there is Intermezzo, an Italian restaurant. With a musical name and beautiful website, one expects a place to represent classical music; however, it is quite the opposite. Going in, we found the front of the place to be really crowded with lots of people at the bar. Going further into the restaurant, we were greeted with empty tables.

Front of the restaurant, bar area.

Back of restaurant

Bread with olive oil- Bread was cold. Most restaurants serve their bread cold but I always give a few extra points if it’s warm because the experience is just so different. I don’t care if it’s microwave or not, it just feels a lot heartier if it’s warm. Olive oil is a premixed concoction for the lazy ones; full of herbs, salt and a pinch of pepper, it’s generic but good.

Italian White bean soup= The soup fills you up since it has small pieces of pasta in there and lots of white beans in a tomato based soup. I think it’s a bit salty and does not have enough flavor in it.

Tortellini with peas, mushrooms and proscuitto in creamy sauce- I only tasted heavy cream in this dish. The heavy cream was so overpowering that if I drink water on the side, occasionally I can taste the mushroom or peas (seems to be frozen peas), the proscuitto were cut into pieces so small you can barely see or taste them.

Pasta with King Salmon- The dish tastes like Tortellini dish; heavy cream overpowered the whole dish. If you are lucky you can taste a bit of salmon.

My friend made the comment that if she was drinking beer or drunk, she wouldn’t mind eating the salty and heavy dishes we had today. I would not recommend Intermezzo even on a drunken day; I just think it’s too heavy and they do not explore the possibilities with the ingredients they have. Even though it’s drenched in heavy cream, the dishes were not good. My favorite part of the meal is probably the bread with olive oil…

After eating the whole meal, we were in a food coma and were in dire need of coffee. If you want to give it a try, make sure you locate a coffee shop before you start this brave endeavor of a heavy salty meal.