- flatiron, good for groups, great for dates, italian, jeans-appropriate, restaurant reviews, tasting menu
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…
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Eleven Madison Park, Redesigned
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Brucie NYC Blew My Mind with Brussels Sprouts
If you’ve been reading donuts4dinner since its inception, you know that the original purpose of this blog was to chronicle my rise from a farmgirl to a three-Michelin-star dining powerhouse. Well, since I became a full-time resident of a new Brooklyn neighborhood and also unemployed at the same time, I’ve been focusing on local restaurants and healthier living. It’s been great for the most part–there’s not a lot that’s more satisfying than finding delicious food that’s a short walk away–but part of me has missed the beautiful plating and mindblowing bites of the finest eateries. But then, thanks to my roommate/landlord/former co-worker/boyfriend, I found Brucie in Cobble Hill. The menu…
- 4, celebrity chef, german, good for groups, great for dates, italian, jeans-appropriate, restaurant reviews, west village
The Marrow
I’ve read recently about how hard it is for a restaurant in NYC to survive after the initial buzz is over. A place opens, every blogger in the tri-state area rushes to review it, it gets no press after the first few months, and it dies. Naturally I accept all of the blame for this, because I’ve never been to any of the old Chef Harold Dietrle restaurants, but I’ve had my eye on The Marrow for months now. I watched him and cheered for him as he won the first season of “Top Chef”, and then I was so excited to live in New York City when he opened…
- 4.5, celebrity chef, great for dates, italian, jeans-appropriate, restaurant reviews, tasting menu, west village, wine-paired menu
The Lunch Tasting Menu at Babbo
Our first trip to Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s Babbo was way, way back in 2010, before we had visited NYC’s Italian heavy-hitters like Torrisi Italian Specialties and Del Posto. At the time, I said that Babbo was doing Italian food better than anyone in its category in my usual superlative-laden way, and three years later, my boyfriend and I wanted to see how it’s holding up. This is the four-course lunch tasting menu at $49 with an extra pasta course each for $20 and $35 for wine pairings: marinated eggplant with pickled chilies, Pecorino and black garlic vinaigrette Very appetizing thanks to the bright vinegar notes. Just a touch…
- 4, celebrity chef, chelsea, good for groups, great for dates, italian, michelin-starred, restaurant reviews, tasting menu, wine-paired menu
Del Posto’s Eight-Course Captain’s Tasting Menu
When I wrote in my Torrisi Italian Specialties review that Italian food in NYC is terrible, bland, and uninspired, the good people of the Chowhound message boards went crazy, telling me that I didn’t know what I was talking about if I hadn’t been to Del Posto, the Joe Bastianich/Lidia Bastianich/Mario Batali behemoth with one Michelin star. So in the name of knowing what I’m talking about, my boyfriend took me there for the $165, eight-course Captain’s Menu for a tasting of Chef Mark Ladner’s finest. Our first impression was that the place was gigantic and cavernous, decorated in dark, heavy fabrics that made it seem like the perfect setting…
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The Chef’s Tasting Menu at Torrisi Italian Specialties – Italian – Nolita
Italian food in New York City is terrible. Most of all in Little Italy. It’s all aimed at tourists, who are so enraptured with the closed, car-free streets and the outdoor seating that they forget to notice the bland, uninspired food. And then there’s Torrisi Italian Specialties, which was bold and impassioned, playful and polished–an embodiment of New York City itself. Torrisi’s seven course, $65 prix-fixe menu is a steal and has received nothing but raves, but of course we couldn’t settle for a mere seven courses and went for the twenty-one course, $150 chef’s tasting menu with seven excellent wine pairings for $75. our Americano This “mocktail”, a riff…
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White Truffle Festival at Sapori D’Ischia – Italian – Woodside
Sapori D’Ischia is so out in the middle of nowhere that when my boyfriend and I approached–after getting lost no less than twice–and I said, “I’m not sure this is the right place,” the owner, who happened to be standing outside, said, “Trust me; it’s the right place. There’s nothing else around here.” You always hear about people who haven’t been to one of the outer boroughs in ten years because they think everything worth seeing is in Manhattan. Well, I actually live in Brooklyn and get annoyed at the prospect of having to leave Manhattan, so if I’m telling you that it’s worth it to trek out to Sapori…
- 4, american (new), celebrity chef, east village, great for dates, italian, restaurant reviews, wine-paired menu
The Tasting Menu at Hearth – Italian/American (New) – East Village
It’s funny how you can ride by a restaurant on the bus every day and not notice it until its chef is a contestant on a reality TV show. Or sad, maybe. But that was the case with Hearth, which I must have seen at least 365 times but didn’t actually see until Chef Marco Canora performed spectacularly on the Food Network’s Next Iron Chef. Another of the Tom-Colicchio-trained, it’s no surprise that his food seems honest and that his ingredients speak for themselves. Hearth is casual without being unimpressive. The waitstaff is in t-shirts and visible tattoos, but the exposed brick, polished wood, and candlelight match the mid-priced menu.…
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Babbo – Italian – West Village
It’s hard to get into Mario Batali’s Babbo. They don’t do online reservations, and week after week when I called, they would tell me they were full. At one point, my boyfriend and I said, “Screw Batali! We don’t want his relatively cheap ($75) tasting menu with also-cheap ($50) wine pairings if it means being jerked around like this!” But once we finally did get in, we realized why the place is always full and why our persistence was totally worth it. We sat in the upstairs portion, which has a lovely skylight that made me excited to take photos. The problem was that as the sun set, so did…
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Becco – Italian – Hell’s Kitchen
Finding restaurants that can hold a group as big as my office’s monthly dinner club of co-workers past and present can sometimes be a major challenge, so super-touristy places like Becco are sometimes our only choice. Luckily, super-touristy doesn’t have to mean super-might-as-well-have-gone-to-McDonald’s. antipasto misto I know the last picture is awful, but that carrot was so crazy soft and delicious that I had to publicly preserve its memory. osso bucco My friend Ash ordered the osso bucco, and everyone was amazed as she went to town on it, scooping the marrow out of the bone with a tiny fork first so she could be sure she didn’t fill up…
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