Mamma Guidara’s at The NoMad Bar

If you’ve ever thought, “Boy, I sure love Eleven Madison Park, but wouldn’t it be great if the chef instead used his immense skills to make me a chicken parm?”, Mamma Guidara’s is for you. It’s Chef Daniel Humm’s take on classic red sauce dishes, named in loving honor of his co-owner, Will Guidara’s, mom.

On Sunday nights, the NoMad Bar transforms into one of those red-checkered-tablecloth joints from the 80s, and although the decor is a little chintzy (in the best way), the food is just what you’d expect from a three-Michelin-star chef. And it’s only $74 for four courses that seem more like eight or ten by the time it’s all said and done.

Mamma Guidara’s is on hiatus this summer but will be back on September 10th! In the meantime, drool over what you’ll be getting, and watch this site for reservations.

a Blue Hawaiian cocktail to start, no shame

Caesar salad

crusty bread that we ordered more of in order to make sandwiches with our leftover chicken parm

fried calamari with marinara

seafood salad

meatballs

chicken marsala

One of my friends insisted that we get this when we were given the choice of chicken parm, chicken piccata, and chicken marsala and asked to pick which we wanted for our three shared dishes. The other five of us all wanted triple chicken parm, but she thought we should try at least one of the others, and we all scorned her. Until this turned out to be totally delicious, and it would’ve been really sad for me to have not known how good it was. Don’t be a fool! The chicken parm is big enough for four people; if you have a group, get the other kinds, and everyone will still be able to have some of everything!

chicken parm

If you think this looks like a normal-sized portion, this picture is misleading. It was equivalent to, I don’t know, a medium pizza? And made out of mostly fat and protein so nothing could be more filling in the world? Since our group of six had two of these plus the chicken marsala, extra bread was procured and take-home sandwiches were made.

side of roasted cauliflower

side of cacio e pepe

side of spaghetti

cannoli

I don’t care about cannoli at ALL and am never sure why New Yorkers freak out about them, but these have me convinced now that cannoli are delicious, even though I really know it’s only THESE cannoli that are delicious. The pastry was so much lighter than usual, buttery instead of crackery, and the filling was just . . . better. I wanted three of them to myself, and it’s a travesty that I can’t walk into a bakery and buy them.

cutting the tartufo

decorating the tartufo

There’s ice cream, and then there’s ice cream rolled into a ball and stuffed with jam.

Overall, this was such a totally fun experience, with familiar food that just happens to be way better than anyone’s mamma used to make it. I’m totally biased toward novelty dining (think the dessert magic trick at Eleven Madison Park), but I’m not sure how anyone could resist a place that serves Little Italy’s food without the surly attitudes and with cannoli that are actually worth freaking out about.