From Arias to Antipasto: Da' Tommaso Has It All

Contrary to popular belief, Little Italy is not the best place to eat real Italian food. It's a tourist trap, and these days, it's only about three blocks long. Short of Italy, Brooklyn is the place to be for marinara sauce and calamari and just about everything in between.

If you should find yourself in Brooklyn, with a hankering for some good carbonara that doesn't taste like it came out of a Kraft box, then you'd do well to stop by da' Tommaso.

Tucked away in a little corner of Bensonhurst (quite literally, the restaurant is located on a corner), da' Tommaso is an experience. Think of it as going to an Italian-American fantasy camp. The setting is elegant, with large, though often under-filled, wine glasses, sparkling silver utensils, and a lone candle. You walk in and immediately notice that all the men are wearing silk shirts and leather jackets, and the women all have big hair and wear multiple rings. The bar is hardwood, and the floors are tiled. The lighting is truly magnificent, with mini-chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

And the singing. On Friday and Saturday nights, the owner, Tom, and his female counterpart break out into show tunes and operatic arias. You'd think it would be annoying, but it's actually quite complimentary to the experience as a whole. The female singer weaves her way through the diners and croons into your face like some type of Toulouse-Lautrec apparition.

The food is a fusion of Italian and traditional American cuisines. You can order filet mignon, or you can order tripe. You might not want to order both at the same time, but individually, they're solid choices. The tripe (for the uninitiated, that's pig intestines, kiddos) is spongy and flavorful. Though quite delicious, tripe is hardly an expensive meat, and they could have piled it on a little higher.

The hot antipasto makes for a knockout appetizer, with stuffed mushrooms, clams oreganto, shrimp, and stuffed eggplant adorning the plate. The sliced breast of duck, though not a traditionally Italian dish, is really pretty breathtaking. The meat is soft and tender, with a crisp, succulent layer of fat covering the skin. The sauce is a type of cranberry extraction. Once again, not very Italian, but delicious nonetheless. The chicken milano is a large dish and expertly prepared, lightly fried and dripping with zesty marinara. All meals come with a side of vegetables and potato croquettes.

Though the bar is certainly stocked, the cellar is where it's at-the wine cellar, that is. Tommaso's has a selection of wines that would make the average Manhattan French restaurant blush and surrender. Tommaso's offers top-line Barolos, Barbarescos, Bordeaux and California wines from the '70s and '80s. The restaurant even has whole years of Bruno Giacosa from the '80s at a mere $45 a bottle. So if you find yourself near da' Tommaso, go inside, order, and prepare yourself for the culinary experience of Italian Brooklyn.