Fiamma.(restaurant)(Restaurant review)

With its high prices, ambitious cuisine, and faltering service, Fiamma has a bewildering, bubble's-end air. Mishandled decadence can seem cautionary. The knowledge that Fiamma is part of a restaurant company called B. R. Guest prompts speculation about strategy: a foursome dining there one recent not too busy night, next to a table celebrating a woman's admittance to Harvard Business School, decided that Fiamma's existence must have something to do with a strong euro and the proximity of the Soho Grand hotel. During the evening, a bartender attempted to make a Martini without vermouth. Several dishes arrived cold. The paccheri--giant tubes of pasta, with pancetta and lovely strips of puntarelle--were, in any country, way undercooked, a parody of al dente, reminiscent of college-era water-to-pasta miscalculations. A bottle of wine showed up twenty minutes after it was ordered, well after the main course had begun to cool, and not for lack of conveyance--the ratio of servers to serving is high here. Coat retrieval was FEMA-like. Is it snotty to grumble about such things? Perhaps, but not when you're paying two hundred bucks a head. Fiamma is all prix fixe; the bottom rung is three courses for eighty-nine dollars. Throw in Barolo, tax, and tip, and, boink, you've been ...