New York City: Emporio
05.08.09
I hate the menu at the new sort-of-Roman downtown restaurant called Emporio—hate it because choosing just a few things from it is all but impossible. Whipped baccalà with crispy polenta; roasted beets with pickled onion and smoked ricotta; risotto with wild mushrooms and fava beans—how to decide? Here, I’ll narrow it down a little: Forget the bland mozzarella-stuffed squash blossoms and the gristly porchetta. Otherwise, you’re golden. Baby favas with mint, wisps of pecorino, and tangles of pea shoots; plump sardines with panzanella; tender grilled octopus with tiny, perfectly cooked risina beans flavored with preserved lemon (the best beans I’ve tasted in New York City in years); offhandedly excellent pizza with Tuscan kale, guanciale, and pecorino cream; exquisite Frascati-braised rabbit with olives… This is vivid, confident, often unusual Italian cooking. Added value: a warm, wonderful dining room beneath a peaked glass roof (the space used to house François Payard’s short-lived InTent), lots of local and/or organic products, and, for now at least, a BYOB policy with no corkage for the first two bottles.
Emporio 231 Mott St., New York City (212-966-1234)
Emporio 231 Mott St., New York City (212-966-1234)
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