This has got to be one of the most surprising restaurant discoveries for me in a while and I can't take any credit for it. Will has been on a red sauce tear of NYC for a while and since this place is basically 5 mins from his and Aarti's apt, it's now become his version of Cheers - where everybody knows his name. In my almost 18 yrs of living in NYC, I have never seen this place before and for good reason. The outside is so unassuming that it's very easy to walk right past it without even blinking an eye. It's smack in the middle of the West Village but it reminds me more of a place that belongs in Williamsburg like Bamonte's (the old Italian part).
It's incredibly old school and everyone in there looks like a regular. It was jammed packed when we went on a Saturday night at 6:30pm. The menu is a typical old school red sauce joint with your anti-pasti, insalate, pasta, pesce, and carne. It's nothing fancy but everything is comfy and spot on. We ordered a TON of food and I can't remember all of it, but we got several kinds of pastas (meat and veggie friendly kinds), caprese salad, and an ossobuco which has kind of become this thing that Will and I get when we do these types of over the top Italian meals. The pasta dishes were super hearty and delicious. What was great about them was that when you got to the bottom of the dishes you didn't see a big pile of oil - so it made me feel like we were kind of eating healthily? The food feels homemade and very much like you're eating in someone's home. The ossobuco (veal shank) was amazing - it fell right off the bone and I would highly recommend mixing each bite with the risotto. I often feel incredibly guilty for eating veal but sometimes it's just so damn delicious. At the end of the meal, they wheel over dessert and then gave us some after dinner drinks and that literally put me over the edge.
The waiters there was so incredibly friendly and accommodating. We kind of went off script and ordered things that were not really on the menu (like a penne vodka) but was easy enough to make in a place like this. I'm not sure if it was because Will was a regular there but the wine pours were gigantic. 1 glass was pretty much like 3 glasses. We left the meal feeling incredibly excited and ready to conquer our trip to Italy in the fall. If you're looking for a really solid place that's no fuss and right in the heart of the Village, definitely put this on your list of places to visit. Tell them Will sent you! Total bill: $80/pp with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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