Category: Italian

Reviews of Italian Restaurants in New York City

Falai

60 Clinton Street between Rivington and Stanton
212/253.1960
about $100 for two, with two drinks, without tip
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I rarely go to an Italian restaurant because I can’t, and don’t want to, eat a whole big bowl of pasta. Falai serves the familiar but transcends at the same time because of the imaginative use of ingredients.

Rich chicken livers were served with a fluff of polenta but also surrounded with chanterelles. The baby octopus did not come with vinaigrette but instead cooked with caramelized Gaeta olives for that mildly sweet taste. Eggplants fried in batter sounded off-putting in 90-degree weather but they were sliced so thin and done so lightly, perfectly. For our main course, we split the ravioli squid ink pasta stuffed with pine nuts, scallops, white asparagus fonduta and baked zucchini. It was heavenly.

Before chef Iacopo Falai managed the kitchen of Bread TriBeCa, he was the pastry chef at Le Cirque 2000. He pays tributes to his roots with the restaurant’s dessert menu, but alas, we had to settle for a dainty strawberry sorbet because we still had glasses of Veltliner and Tocai and Prosecco to finish.

Peasant

194 Elizabeth Street between Prince and Spring, New York City
212/965.9511
about $150 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

It’s hard to convince me to try a restaurant dubbed “Best Place to Impress a First Date” but after walking by Peasant one afternoon, I thought of it as the best place to treat my special someone to dinner. The first thing you see as soon as you walk in is the fire from the brick oven in the back where they cook all their Italian fare the traditional way. The dark wood gives the restaurant a rustic feel, but the aluminum chairs add a touch of modernity.

We split the baked scallops topped with breadcrumbs and the octopus in vinaigrette. The beet and mixed greens salad was excellent. We like it when the waitstaff gives us some time in between courses, but Peasant stretched it a bit too long. The appetizers settled in our stomachs, that by the time the boy’s squab was served, we were already full. We started to slice the bird but had to send it back because it was too rare. Maybe the cooks in the back need more light than the brick oven provides. I also had to hold up a candle to see what kind of beans arrived on our table–fava–and what mushrooms smelled so good–porcini–with my sweetbreads. I’ve never had sweetbreads as a main course before but if there’s a restaurant that takes everything to the max, Peasant is it.

For dessert, we wished for the peach tart topped with hazelnut ice cream but decided to skip it after we saw that it was more that the size of a big slice. I appreciate big portions for the amount of money they charge, but there are times when I’d prefer a smaller plate rather than a gluttonous one. Fortunately, a smaller space in the basement offers smaller plates.

Esca

402 West 43rd Street off Ninth Avenue
212/564.7272
about $700 for four, with a lot of drinks, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥

Some friends I met while traveling in Ireland were in town. Remembering how much we all liked our seafood while we were traveling, I booked a table for four at Esca. At least two people are required to order the tasting menu per table, so my companions opted for that while I ordered the crudo appetizer, or tasting portions of raw seafood: uni served on its shell, an oyster, scallops with chervil, razor clams with chilis and hamachi with scallions. I’ve never had seafood worshipped this way. I salivated over the carpaccio yellowfin tuna and the linguine with mahogany clams and pancetta. The shrimps with caper and thyme vinaigrette, the squid-ink spaghetti with cuttlefish and the striped bass with caramelized apples were all delicious. The Maine halibut was a little bland if not eaten with the burdock root and black trumpet mushrooms, but the scallops were perfectly seared. I loved the warm fruit turnover and the raspberry ice cream for dessert. Unfortunately, I could not find room in my stomach to accommodate the creme brulée.

There was no Guiness beer but there were plenty of other wee-drinks: a bottle of Marchese di Gresy, another bottle of Moscato D’Asti and yet another bottle from Piemonte for dessert. Champagne, vodka and gin and tonics were also ordered several times before the main courses were served. Esca, which means bait in Italian, is a great place for groups–just don’t bring Irish friends who can outdrink you.

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Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca

110 Waverly Place between MacDougal and Sixth
212/777.0303
about $200 for two, with a few drinks, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Our first time at Babbo, we went all out, asked questions about never-heard words written on the menu (braciole! francobolli! scottadita!) and picked out a bottle of red wine to match. I started with spicy lamb tartare with mint crostini and a quail egg in the middle. It killed me.
The boy chose the grilled octopus with “borlotti marinati” and spicy limoncello vinaigrette. You know how octopus can be chewy sometimes even in the best Japanese restaurants? This was perfectly tender.

For primi, I had the one-pound lobster with spicy budding chives, sweet garlic and what seemed to be four pounds of spaghettini. The boy opted for beef cheek ravioli with crushed squab liver and black truffles. I was so full after all that, sharing the secondi became a good call: guinea hen braciole with favas and pecorino.

Ufortunately, we had to draw the line on desserts. There was just no way I could have squeezed in another bite but our waiter gave us complementary cookies anyway.

On our second visit, we managed to control ourselves. We decided to share a lot of the offal starters since we knew the pasta dishes were too much for us. We finished the night with four of the best dishes we’ve eaten in our lives:

Warm lamb’s tongue vinaigrette with chanterelles, pecorino Toscano and a 3-minute egg
Calf’s brain “Francobolli” with lemon and sage
Goose liver ravioli with balsamic vinegar and brown butter
Fennel-dusted sweetbreads with sweet and sour onions, duck bacon and membrillo vinegar

Sharing the appetizers was definitely the way to go. It allowed us to get a better sense of the Mario Batali behind Babbo.