Italian Cuisines
First Bite: L’Apicio
It ain’t easy to open a restaurant in this city, nevermind a successful one. First, there’s the task of finding a space with reasonable rent, then liquor licenses to wrangle, and building out the space. Not to mention coming up with an original concept and menu, which ain’t easy either. Yet, Joe Campanale and his partners, August Cardona, Gabe and Katherine Thompson, continue to open successes, which manage packed dining rooms and full reservation books around the clock. What started with a West Village trattoria named dell’anima has expanded into a growing empire of hip Italian-bent eateries that includes L’Artusi and Anfora. L’Apicio is their fourth venture and their first East Village eatery, located on the Bowery (just around the corner from DBGB) in a spacious locale that used to house Bowery Wine Co. The interior...
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Parm’s Thanksgiving Hero
Indiscriminately piling leftovers on a hunk of bread is the average Joe’s answer to Thanksgiving leftovers (and not a bad idea at all), but Parm’s iconic sandwich has made an art of the dish with some surprise flavors and textures. A crusty semolina hero is layered with cranberry sauce, mayonnaise, fried sage leaves, mashed sweet potato puree, hunks of house-roasted honey and garlic turkey breast and a sprinkle of fresh thyme — the perfect accompaniment for a day of football-watching from the confines of your couch or Parm’s counter...
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Barbuto’s Lamb Ribs with Cranberries
If your idea of cranberries is limited to muffins and jellified sauce that holds its shape in a can, be sure to pay a visit to Jonathan Waxman’s rustic, West Village eatery to experience cranberries as they should be. While the menu changes frequently, his current obsession with the tart, jewel-like fruit is yielding delicious results. We’re particularly intrigued by a current special of Costini Di Agnello, juicy Lamb Ribs cooked in the wood-fire oven and anointed with Cranberries and...
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L’Apicio
If you’re bored of the same old same old, try a new joint. This is New York City afterall and new restaurants open every few hours. Besides, these guys have a good track record. What started with Dell’anima, followed by L’Artusi is quickly becoming a thriving restaurant empire. L’Apicio is their newest venture, an Italian-inspired eatery with a long, wood far, expansive and super cozy upfront lounge and plenty of dining. The decor is industrial meets living room — the perfect combination of cool and comfort — with floating black banquettes scattered around the room and sexy, low lighting. (Come spring, there will be plenty of outdoor seating in the courtyard, too!) Enough about the space, let’s talk drinks. These aren’t your average cocktails at all. Beverage director (and master sommelier) Joe Campanale has devised a creative list...
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Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto
What’s with the sudden restaurant migration to the Upper East Side? First, the guys from The Lion made the trek uptown to open The Crown last year, then came Il Mulino’s recent fall, “red sauce” debut and now Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto. Except Salumeria Rosi didn’t exactly move uptown. Instead, partner and chef Cesare Casella made his way across Central Park from the West Side to open a second Salumeria Rosi outpost, a partnership with Parmacotto meat purveyors.
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Perbacco
At Perbacco, Chef Simone Bonelli blends her love of traditional Italian cuisine and modern innovation. For an appetizer, try the Crème Brulée di Parmigiano Reggio, a delightful dish where 18-month aged Parmesean cheese is used as the base.
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Q & A with Il Buco Alimentari’s Chef Justin Smillie
It’s been quite a year for chef Justin Smillie, whose cooking at Il Buco Alimentari E Vineria has garnered plenty of attention and packed tables night after night. This NoHo market-cum-restaurant-cum-wine-bar manages to be everything to everyone. From the crusty, Italian breads baked in house, to the salumi dried and aged in the basement, and pastas, made impeccably fresh daily.
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Bar Corvo
Brooklyn is brimming with delectable dining choices, but Crown Heights is still a relatively underserved neighborhood. Luckily, the guys behind Al di Là (one of the restaurants that helped launch Park Slope as the cool place to open a restaurant) have set up shop on an unassuming block in the area. And with the food they’re serving up at Bar Corvo, home-style Italian fare like Calamari with Almonds and Lasagna al Forno, we’re confident they’ll help develop another busy dining mecca in Brooklyn.
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Peasant
If you’re looking for the perfect date spot, this is your guy. There’s just something about the open kitchen, brick oven and dripping candles that draw couples back time and time again. But it’s the Tuscan fare and the open fire cooking that has kept us coming back over the years. Everything – the skate, the leg of lamb, the tomatoes – is touched by some form of an open flame.
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Locanda Verde
Every neighborhood should have an Italian spot as good and as cozy as Locanda Verde. The kitchen’s packing star power with Chef Andrew Carmellini (Cafe Boulud, A Voce) on savory, Karen DeMasco (Gramercy Tavern & Craft) on sweets and Josh Nadel (Cru) on beverage. The perfect mix of creative, yet comforting cooking, the menu is studded with winners, like fire-roasted garlic chicken, roasted sea scallops with spring peas and almond gazpacho, and pappardelle with lamb bolognese. Start with the blue crab crostini and the ricotto crostini, which are both excellent and save room for DeMasco’s innovative gelati, budino, and seasonal tarts. What to drink with it?
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Frank
This East Village Italian never gets old, which is why it’s always buzzing with diners, hungry for their juicy Meatloaf, Fresh Gnocchi or Mussels Marinara. They don’t take reservations, but you can linger at the bar while you wait for your table. As soon as you grab a table, grab a glass of well-priced Italian wine and the gorgeously buttery, imported Burrata, still one of the best in the city, with sliced tomatoes.
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Bar Pitti
This West Village Italian restaurant is so confident in its cooking and appeal that it doesn’t feel the need for a website. Why should it? It’s always packed with locals, tourists, and celebrities alike who happily come to sit on green plastic chairs along the sidewalk in the warmer months. They’re not reinventing the wheel, but they do traditional dishes like eggplant parmigiana, veal meatballs and veal milanese.
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Antonucci's Cafe – Reviewed
While the Upper East Side is a perfectly lovely place to live — with plenty of great grocery stores, delivery options and old school Italian joints — it isn’t exactly a dining destination. After all, dining out is entertainment, and like anything else, we all want to see the new hit movie, broadway show, or eat at the new, hot restaurant. With the opening of Jean Georges’ The Mark and Cascabel Taqueria, the Upper East Side has certainly gotten better, but it’s still got quite a ways to go. While it’s not my first choice, I’ve always been an open-minded eater, so I was happy to meet friends at a place they love called Antonucci’s Cafe on 81st Street, just off Third Avenue. Now, I’ve lived in New York for over fifteen years and I’ve never heard of Antonucci’s,...
Read MoreMarea
Seafood shrine is a great catch. Cuisine: Coastal Italian Vibe: Breezy fine dining Occasion: Business or bargain lunch, romantic date, dinner for an occasion Don’t Miss: Lobster with burrata, brodetto di pesce, garganelli with sausage ragu, zucchini torte with frozen yogurt Price: Appetizers, $11; entrees, $18; dessert, $9 Reservations: Recommended Phone: (212) 582-5100 Location: 240 Central Park South, between Broadway & Seventh Ave. Chef Michael White is either really confident or completely out of his mind. These days everyone is scaling back and lowering prices. Everyone, that is, except for White and partner Chris Cannon, who just opened Marea, a haute seafood restaurant on Central Park South. The main dining room is furnished with high-gloss rosewood, chocolate leather banquettes, silver-coated seashells and roaming silver trolleys lined with liqueurs. And what’s most compelling about Marea’s dining room isn’t the decor,...
Read MoreLocanda Verde
Cuisine: Italian Vibe: Buzzing trattoria Occasion: Group dinner, casual date, night out Don’t Miss: Blue crab crostino; fettuccine verde with white Bolognese; almond semifreddo Price: Appetizers, $13; entrees, $22; desserts, $8 Reservations: Recommended Phone: (212) 925-3797 Location: 377 Greenwich St., near N. Moore St. What a disaster Ago was. It seemed to have everything going for it – Robert De Niro, the Greenwich Hotel, a distinguished designer, and it was an Ago, an offshoot of the original Hollywood eatery famous for its celebrity clientele. The one in Tribeca was like a cafeteria that served miserable, overpriced Italian food. It opened and closed in less than six months. Ago was dreadful, but the new incarnation, an Italian trattoria called Locanda Verde, is excellent. This was quite an exorcism. It’s got two high-powered chefs, Andrew Carmellini and Karen DeMasco, a hip...
Read MoreEmporio
Cuisine: Roman-style Vibe: ’20s trattoria Occasion: Group dinner, casual date, long lunch Don’t Miss: Grilled lamb Scottadito Price: Appetizers $10, entrées $18, dessert $6 Reservations: Recommended Phone: (212) 966-1234 Location: 231 Mott St., near Prince St. Over the past few months, five Roman-style restaurants have opened in Manhattan. What is it about Roman cooking? For starters, it’s simple and cheap. And right now, simple and cheap is a very good thing. Roma means carciofi alla giuda (Jewish-style fried artichokes), fried asparagus, fried zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies. Rome means salads made with fresh fava beans, chickpeas, anchovies and mint. And Pecorino Romano, a salty, aged sheep’s milk cheese. Rome is also famous for pizza with wafer-thin crust topped with mozzarella, tomato, capers and anchovies. If you don’t know what a Roman pie tastes like, visit Emporio, a...
Read MoreScuderia
Cuisine: Italian Vibe: Rock ‘n’ roll trattoria Occasion: Business lunch, romantic date, family affair Don’t Miss: Squid-ink tagliatelle, Scuderia pizza, buttermilk panna cotta Price: Appetizers, $9; entrées, $18; dessert, $8.50 Reservations: Accepted Phone: (212) 206-9111 Location: 10 Downing St., between Bleecker and Houston. Stand at the corner of Downing St. and Sixth Ave. and take a look around. What you may be seeing is the core of a New Little Italy, complete with neighborhood feuds and family businesses passed down to the next generation. The old Little Italy, to the east and downtown, is slowly fading away. But here are Bar Pitti, Da Silvano, Silvano Bistecca and Scuderia, which just opened six weeks ago. Thirty years ago, Silvano Marchetto opened Da Silvano – it’s upscale, it’s hard to get into, it’s like a celebrity supper club of sorts. But...
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Vesta Trattoria
Vesta Trattoria 21-02 30th Ave., Astoria; (718) 545-5550 Lunch, Mon.-Fri., noon-4 p.m.; Dinner, Sun.-Mon., 5-10 p.m.; Tue.-Thur., 5-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m.-12 a.m. CUISINE: Italian VIBE: Warm nabe spot OCCASION: Casual date, neighborhood bites, family or group dinner DON’T-MISS DISH: Three-meat lasagna, lamb shank, baby Jesus cake PRICES: Appetizers, $8; entrees, $14; desserts, $5.50 RESERVATIONS: Accepted Have you ever had wine by the shot? I hadn’t either, until a few weeks ago. I don’t mean shot, as in a one-ounce shot of whiskey. I mean a port glass of Primitivo – a spicy, medium-bodied red from Puglia – for $2.50. This is a wine you could drink all through dinner. But why bother? If you can drink wine by the shot, you can try many more wines and pair them more closely with each course you order. And still...
Read MoreCipolla Rossa
Recession-proof dining. 1762 First Ave., at 91st St. (212) 996-9426 Mon.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun, noon-10 p.m. CUISINE: Tuscan Italian VIBE: Humble neighborhood spot OCCASION: Neighborhood dining, family dinner DON’T MISS DISH: Grilled calamari, venison pappardelle, wild boar meatloaf, tiramisu AVERAGE PRICE: Appetizers, $7; entrees, $14; dessert, $5 RESERVATIONS: Accepted Why aren’t more people talking about Cipolla Rossa? Maybe it’s the location — First Ave. near 91st St. Maybe it’s the narrow storefront. It has a bright yellow awning and it looks more like your average takeout joint than a real restaurant. The only reason I knew about it was the wild boar meatloaf. Someone had tipped me off, knowing I’m fond of game. So, I trekked up to Cipolla Rossa on a cold, rainy Saturday night and waited 30 minutes for a table. As it turned out, the...
Read MoreBar Pitti
Happiness is a plate of pesto pasta. 268 Sixth Ave., near Bleecker St., (212) 982-3300 Seven days a week, noon to midnight CUISINE Italian VIBE Downtown sidewalk scene OCCASION First date, group dinner DON’T MISS DISH Pesto pasta, veal meatballs, eggplant parmigiana AVERAGE PRICES Appetizers, $7; entrees, $13.50; dessert, $6.50 RESERVATIONS Accepted for parties of four or more Wasn’t last week a miserable one in New York? The markets were down and so were some of the candidates.Some people lose their appetite when things seem gloomy. Not me. All I wanted was a bowl of pesto pasta. And nobody makes better pesto sauce than Bar Pitti. If you’ve ordered it, you know exactly I’m talking about. Every New Yorker should eat it at least once. But it was late in September, so my chances were slim. High basil season...
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