Bull Ring

Bull's expressed sense seems to depart with the pork belly diavolo, a deconstruction gone weird. Crispy, fatty pork belly rests on strokes of tomato sauce. An isolated tuft of celery leaves in vinaigrette is topped with a lick of celery foam. At the other end of the plate is a scoop of mozzarella gelato, shreds of cheese embedded in the ice fissures. Bull says the collection of ingredients must be eaten together to understand his intended impression. But the natural instinct is to wipe the pork in the sauce, nibble at the celery salad, and use the mozzarella gelato as a palate refresher to scrub off the pork fat, a thing cheese ice cream is incapable of doing. It evokes his unintended "what is that?" inquiry. Still, the oddity of it, its layers of veiled logic, keeps you engaged until you can decode the thing—even days later.

Charred tenderloin is another puzzle. A perfectly satiny and lush piece of beef sinks into a rich slick of beurre rouge, a thick unctuous sauce made from reduced red wine blended with butter, tarragon and cream. The sauce itself is enough to complement this meat. But Bull tops the meat with a truffle onion crumble that is distracting.

Service can be slow and uneven at Bolla, with long waits and missed requests—some mistranslated at some point from your lips to their plates. For dessert we went for the balsamic strawberry and blackberry gelatos, which after a long wait arrived as a trio of orange espresso, vanilla and ginger gelatos, the scoops half melted into a puddle of gelato runoff.

Dine at Bolla with your wits about you. Savor its mysteries. Be wary of its flaws. If you don't find yourself bowled over by Bull, you'll be back just to see what happens next.