Scarpetta

Scarpetta docked at the Fontainebleau fresh from the flagship's successful launch in New York. Chef Scott Conant's "Italian soul food" is basic and the technique classical. Most ingredients are traditional, and the resultant flavors meld rustic and earthy with streamlined and refined. The simplest of the succinct menu's offerings is the yellowtail crudo with olio di zenzero and crunchy pickled red onion. Conant's signature spaghetti is hardly more complex: thick strands of the pasta twirled into a nest with a slow-cooked sauce made from nothing but fresh tomatoes, basil, a pinch of Parmesan, butter, and olive oil. Chewy, rough-hewn rectangles of short-rib agnolotti dal plin are even better with horseradish, brown butter, and a red wine reduction. An Italian native might not recognize most of the offerings here, but neither would they be likely to complain.