My evening at Palma seemed as though it was off to a great start. It was an uncharacteristically crisp August night and the restaurant had its storefront encosure removed. My dining partner and I scored an excellent table that looked onto Cornelia St. Cafe’ - one of West Village’s few remaining venues of arts and poetry.

A sucker for atmosphere, I was immediately biased toward wanting to love Palma and very hopeful of turning it into one of my Greenwich Village staples. This was because during the first half hour of our visit, I was flooded with good impressions: an airy, sun-drenched space located on one of Greenwich Villages most charming blocks, a cheerful, farm-house decor that evoked the lightness of summer from the yellow mums ornamenting each table to the show-stopping sunflower centerpiece that set atop the bar to the rustic, light-toned dining pottery.

The good vibes continued as the friendly waitress greeted us, took our orders and served us a basket of light, non-greasy, foccaccia bread and delectable taste-size dishes of Sicilian olives with thin slices of lemon and a pungent olive oil bursting with flavor. The tasters were followed with a refreshing rucola fennel salad with lemon vinaigrette hit the spot.

Feeling the pulse of Sicilian summer inside me, I waxed exuberant and felt confident that Palma would be able to deliver a satisfying and done-right plate of linguine alle vongole. I turned out being dead wrong. What they turned out was a uniform starchy mass that served as a bed for the clams. The linguine looked and tasted as though they had spent the better part of the day sitting in a colander in the Mojave. While the dozen littleneck clams were unmistakably fresh – they were placed atop the linguine in their shells more as to ornament the linguine than to complement the pasta as a key ingredient. There was nothing that might have remotely suggested that contact between the clams and the linguine might have predated the serving plate.

What a pity since Palma had hit so many high notes up until then with its positive display of some of the basics– bread, olives and a regal choice in olive oil. By that point I was expecting that a good linguine alle vongole would be a sure thing at this intimate, laid back, new generation southern Italian restaurant. The twenty five minute wait for my pasta added to my hopeful anticipation for something fresh and enjoyable. You might imagine my disappointment when all that arrived was a ring of shells over a bed of starch. At $18.95, at a place that by all appearances seems poised to turn out authentic southern Italian dishes, the disappointment is well warranted. Shame on you, Palma, you should be capable of better. Much, better.

As for us, we managed to redeem the evening by cueing up at Grom, a few short blocks away (corner of Bleecker and Carmine) for mind-meltingly good gelato. And, mmmmhh was the redemption sweet.

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