Not having been to L’Attitude in several years, I noticed during a recent visit how the promising teenager is now all grown up. On an introductory visit in the spring of 2001, the restaurant was a tiny place in the Pawtuxet Village section of Cranston, with only nine tables, six of them deuces. An eclectic, well-prepared menu kept the place so packed that it was open seven days a week.
Something like 20 minutes after that visit, the restaurant blossomed to three times its original size. It's still open every day, since the neighborhood faithful had spread L’Attitude’s reputation well past the city limits.
The expansion was by no means fancy-schmancy. The French name of the place partly goofs on pretentiousness and partly reminds us of what really matters. L’Attitude calls itself a “Modern Eatery,” and informality is part of how it defines that. Trellises hang above the kitchen partition at the back of the sprawling dining room, and you walk through an arching arbor to enter that room.
The informality extends to lunch items being available in the evening — sandwiches, wraps, and pizzas. After all, the menu declares that "freedom from limitations" is what they're all about.
The tried-and-true items, available every day, are a short list of five "snacks," three salads, three pizzas, and seven “supper” dishes. A menu supplement changes daily; the evening we were there, the appetizers and salads each got a couple of additions, and pepperoni was added to the everyday veggie, chicken-pesto, and marinara pizzas. The soup of the day (tomato vegetable that day) is offered on the insert, as are a few pasta dishes.
The starter options ($5-$8.50) varied widely, as though someone had picked favorites from a stack of restaurant menus. Sautéed lump crab cake with lemon beurre blanc was at one extreme, “half-baked” hot wings were at the other.
I was introducing the place to an out-of-state friend, and since one of his favorite appetizers proved enjoyable on my original visit, we shared the calamari. It’s offered in $6 and $8.50 portions, and the latter was just enough for two eager appetites. Tossed in a lemon-butter sauce with banana pepper and black olive slices, the especially tender and greaseless rings were topped with a few small clusters of tentacles like a prank garnish. It was more or less the standard Rhode Island preparation, but Jerry declared it “more adventurous” than most Boston versions.
His sense of adventure piqued, my friend went for the Cajun jambalaya ($16). Now, I appreciate the limitations-be-damned L’Attitude attitude, but I had trouble with their offering this on pasta as well as the traditional rice (risotto, actually). But sauce is sauce, I suppose. Another thing is that since the preparation contains tomatoes, it’s actually Creole jambalaya. Enough with the objections; it was packed with chicken and shrimp, and my samplings from Jerry’s plate delivered a pleasant balance of spices, the heat not short-circuiting my taste buds. A traditionalist, he would have preferred regular rice to the risotto with its extra oil.
I also ordered from the regular menu, since the description of the herb-roasted chicken ($13.50) boasted “Trust Me on This One.” My tentative faith was rewarded. Accompanied by nutmeg-seasoned spinach and skin-on mashed potatoes, the two sections of succulent chicken, with its savory skin, lay in a plentiful pool of flavorful juices.
If you want to linger for dessert, there are plenty of choices — nine that night, priced $5 to $7. They ranged from the obligatory tiramisu and crème brûlée to the unexpected fried cheesecake. We had the turtle cheesecake, which was a dense circle of delicious cholesterol variations and too rich for us to finish.
Most days of the week there are discounted specials at L’Attitude, such as after-five “Tenderloin Tuesdays,” when filet mignon is $1.50 per ounce. The one that makes me smile is "Restaurant Industry Night” on Mondays, when wait and kitchen staff from other restaurants get a good deal on what is usually their day off — the cheap sangria being, I assume, especially welcome.
Dean Scanlon, executive chef and co-owner with wife Maria, still calls the culinary shots here, and that says everything about the place’s success. When it comes to quality in a restaurant, the attitude in the kitchen is everything.
