If you're like me, the first thing you turn to in the New Yorker after checking to make sure that it's not a Denby week on the film pages is the delightful "Tables for Two" restaurant review. (This week Mike Peed looks at Schnipper's Quality Kitchen.) The brief assessments are so very New Yorker: literary, knowing, and written with a joyous melange of ennui and enthusiasm. They almost beg for imitation (or, if you're reading this and your name is David Remnick, audition). In fact, let's try one now!

PAZZOPALLE
433 West 34th Street, at Dyre Avenue

In New York, where dining is as much a marker of cultural capital as regular theater attendance, the great and the good often refer to specific moments of culinary creation the same way they discuss an actor's first Lear. "Ah, yes, the sage-butter phyllo dough gnocchi," they'll say. "I remember when he debuted that back at HomeFire, in '03, before they turned it into another Duane Reade."

The he in question is Charlie DeLauria, whose first star turn on the scene six years ago is still spoken of in the same hushed terms that some use to describe Brando's early collaborations with Kazan: powerful, transcendent, and with an air of sexual menace (particularly when one mentions his conch fritters in cranberry reduction, which possessed enough swagger to make even the most jaded foodie blush). The fritters are back at Pazzopalle, DeLauria's newest stage, but the rough-hewn masculinity of his early days has burned off into something more assured, if still dangerous: rather than the bitter companionship of the thick cranberry syrup, the fritters now find themselves enveloped in what the chef calls a "coconut brocade," where the primary palm flavor is weft with ancillary notes of tamarind and green tea. It's equal parts challenge and come-on.

As is the room itself. Part bistro, part Midwest filling station, Pazzopalle has the rustic appeal of an Indochine boîte spirited by magic into a bustling lumberyard: blonde hardwoods compete with bleached bamboo to add another layer of cunning seduction to the experience. The well-dressed clientele, DeLauria devotees all, are clearly gagging for it. Praise soars to the rafters-a regard for acoustics is clearly in disfavor at ObLaDi, the architectural firm which designed the space-for even the most pedestrian dish (DeLauria's "Chunky Bunny" is simply a saddle of rabbit cooked for six hours in a tub of Armour lard; on a chill winter's night there might not be a better dish in the city), but when DeLauria takes one of his more brazen steps above the parapet (Newfoundland heritage moose braised in elderflower octopus gelée), you expect the room to unite in a standing ovation for its returning headliner.

Even DeLauria's supporting cast seems to rise to the occasion; vest-clad servers greet diners with the infectious affability of a theater ingénue whose enthusiasm has yet to be ground down by the inevitable diminishments of repeated performances. It's hard to say how long Pazzopalle will be around-DeLauria is famously peripatetic, and the name of the restaurant itself (literally, "crazy balls" in Italian) bespeaks a grudging awareness of the myriad sexual harassment accusations which resulted in the closure of HomeFire-but if you're able to attend an engagement, do not hesitate: fans will be talking about this one for years.