Traverse City Record-Eagle,  Aug. 29, 2003
Monte Bianco, a mix-and-match treasure
Monte Bianco, the restaurant outside Boyne City, is a genuine treasure, run by Irish proprietors who moved from San Francisco to open an Italian restaurant in an old roadhouse in rural Northern Michigan. That may seem an odd mix, perhaps, but it was a perfect match. The proprietors, John and Mary Kelly, know what they're doing and pour heart and soul into it

In the decade since they opened Monte Bianco, they've built a steady, devoted clientele by quietly running one of the most reliably good restaurants in the region and letting word of mouth do the rest.

Every year or so we head there for the reassurance of a touchstone, and we're never disappointed. Our most recent dinner there, in mid-August with friends from Kewadin, was as pleasant as our first had been a decade ago. Mary, who runs the front of the house with calm efficiency, greeted us warmly and turned us over to her polite, energetic, and efficient young serving staff. Since the Kellys don't take reservations, we'd gone early and had a table immediately. Twenty minutes later we'd have had to wait, and the house remained full the rest of the evening.

After taking and delivering our order for a bottle of robust California Sangiovese, our server delivered a basket of hot, fresh herbed bread and left us to the menu. Monte Bianco does not rely on cutting-edge razzle-dazzle, but on solid execution of a menu so immutable that four of the five recipes the Kellys gave us in 1995 for the first edition of The Connoisseur Up North are still offered daily. Immutable, maybe, but the menu is certainly not boring, and we'd still recommend just about anything on it.

One of us, always a sucker for a good pasta dish, realized again on our recent visit how difficult it is to choose among the Kellys' various pasta dishes--fish, seafood and veggie--with their pesto, curry cream, and tomato sauces. This time, the choice was penne "Casalinga," tossed in oil and garlic with chicken, tomato and olives. The other three at table were unanimously enthusiastic for Vitello Monte Bianco, an equally simple house specialty of veal piccata--filets sautéed in butter with lemon, parsley and mushrooms. Both entrée dishes demonstrated the timeless virtue of simplicity.

For heartier appetites, Monte Bianco offers Vitella all'Parmigiana, in which the filet is coated with seasoned breadcrumbs and baked under cheese in a marinara sauce. Or Rollatini di Pollo (one of those recipes from 1995) with figs, mozzarella and prosciutto rolled up in butterflied chicken breasts and baked in Gorgonzola cream. There's room to graze as well, on such appetizers as pizzetta, baked mozzarella, grilled prawns in mint vinaigrette, and beef carpaccio with lemon, oil, mustard, capers, basil and Parmesan. There is almost always a fish special of one sort of another, depending on season and availability. And the fully a-la-carte menu has minestrone and a seafood soup, as well as two salads: mixed greens in house-made vinaigrette or a classic, garlicky Caesar salad with egg and anchovy, just as the great Cardini himself prescribed 70 odd years ago.

The only details we could find to fuss over were that the pasta dish was a bit heavy on the oil, and the tomatoes in the salads were decidedly unripe. (We're always puzzled, and dismayed, that so many restaurants serve pithy, hard, pink tomatoes in a season when every roadside farm stand within 50 miles has ripe, red, juicy-sweet ones for sale.) These, however, were details, and in all other respects the food was excellent right through the cappuccino.

One of the reasons we think you're unlikely ever to be disappointed by Monte Bianco is that the Kellys' treasure their good name. This priority stood them in good stead their very first summer when their chef left at the peak of the season. Although they're managers, not cooks, they could have faked it for the sake of cash flow. But rather than compromise quality, they closed the doors for three days until they could find a good new chef.

Along with the menu, the prices remain recognizable after a decade, too. Entrees that were $12-20 then are $14-25 now, and pasta dishes that used to run $10-13, start at $11 these days and go to $15. Our tab for two salads and two entrees was $47, plus tip and our share of that nice Sangiovese.

On top of all this, Monte Bianco is a happy place to be. You won't find any silent couples staring at the walls, just animated couples, groups and families having a good time in lively conversation over good food. And that is something we always treasure in a restaurant.

DATA: Monte Bianco, 2911 Boyne City Rd., Boyne City; 231-582-3341. Reservations not accepted. Open nightly in summer. Call ahead in the off-season, because days and hours vary.