I’ve been meaning to try the restaurant L’Artusi, owned by the same people as the always crowded dell’Anima, for a couple of months now. They take reservations, but every time I’ve tried to book, usually on the same day, they haven’t had any openings. So when Sallie said she would be in town on her last trip to NYC from Seattle for a while (she’s pregnant and can no longer fly), I thought it was a great opportunity to book ahead and give it a shot. So it was the two of us, plus Leslie, on a cold, winter Monday for dinner.
The restaurant is located on West 10th Street behind a bit of scaffolding and a small door. Once inside, it opens up into a deep, rambling space. It has all the current requisite pieces of a new restaurant: chef’s counter for dining? Check. Cafe-like seating area in the bar space? Check. Large, open kitchen? Check. There’s also an upstairs that has a semi-private dining room at the back. The walls are black (or black-ish), and though they soften it with patterned upholstery in warm colors, the space more slick than neighborhoody. While it doesn’t quite have the charm of dell’Anima, there’s still something friendly about it. The staff were certainly all welcoming and gracious.
The menu itself is written in a somewhat non-standard way, which the information architect in me found interesting. First, it’s turned on its side, so, Crudo, Verdura, Pasta, Secondi were written across the top as column headers, with the menu items listed beneath them in columns. The pastas were listed by noodle type, rather than by name (so rather than say Bucatini al’Amatriciana, it just says Bucatini, with the ingredients listed below it). I found the whole thing interesting, if not entirely successful.
On to the food: I started with the Chicories, a salad of chicory, radicchio and endive, with a parmesan anchovy dressing. It was perfectly dressed, well seasoned and exactly what I had been craving. (My efforts to eat locally mean I’m not eating much in the way of leafy greens these days. I think my body is craving vitamins.). Leslie and Sallie both got other salads, which I didn’t try, but they also enjoyed. So far so good.
We each got pastas for our main courses. I got the Bucatini. Mind you, I haven’t had amatriciana since I was in Rome in July, but I do know that there are decent ones to be had in NYC. It’s not the same, but it can satisfy the craving. This was perhaps one of the worst I’ve had. It was sauced with a very heavy hand, the noodles practically drowning in the chunks of pancetta and tomato. The pancetta was also overly caramelized, meaning it was burned. On top of that, the whole dish was overly salted, almost to the point of being inedible. Sallie got the pizzoccheri, which was baked in a heavy compilation of cheese and brussels sprouts. There could have been what was once a bechamel in there, but the whole thing was so dense it was hard to tell. Leslie got a dish of farfalle with duck ragu. It was the best of the three, but it was only average. Both of their dishes were overly salty as well.
I know that in general the best chefs and staff in restaurants work Tuesday to Saturday, but whoever was working the pasta station at L’Artusi on Monday was inexcusably bad. The cold apps person did a fine job, as did our waiter (though there was something a little awkward about him). Although I feel no real inclination to go back to try it on another day, I can’t help but think the food has got to be better Tuesday to Saturday than what they served on Monday. But when there’s so much better Italian throughout the city, I’m not sure I’m going to give these guys another shot. I’d rather endure the lines at dell’Anima.
The bigger question for me is whether I should be eating out on Mondays at all? Maybe the next time I make dinner plans on a Monday evening I’ll just cook it myself.
