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“Morandi”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Italian	West Village	Moderate	Great

e some decisions about what to eat, because at the moment we’re thinking of ordering all but about four things on the menu. I have an Aranci Rosso ($10), a glass of Proseco so juicy with fresh blood orange nectar that I am convinced there’s no alcohol in it. In a few moments, when I feel that warm, fuzzy feeling start to wash over me, I realize there is. Craig has opted for the Pimm’s Italiano made with gin and strega. It’s terrific—herbaceous, balanced, and just slightly cucumbery.

We make our plan, it’s an ambitious one to be sure, but we promise not to finish everything on our plates. We snuggle into our banquette, and look around the room. Keith McNally, the restaurant’s owner and the man behind Teflon all-stars like Pravda, Balthazar, Pastis and Schiller’s, has just arrived and not a soul in the room takes note. He’s dressed simply in a black sweater and dark pants and looks like a regular guy, not someone who in 1997 caused a seismic shift in the dining landscape of New York City with an effortlessly chic brasserie (that would be Balthazar) that seemed to have been transplanted from Paris to Soho by magic carpet.

His relative anonymity and lack of interest in playing the role of celebrity restaurateur is unusual, but it is probably a product of his modest English beginnings. His mother worked in a clerical position at the London post office and his father worked the docks for thirty-five years. Most of what I know of McNally I learned from reading the introduction to the Balthazar cookbook, a wonderful piece penned by the art critic Robert Hughes. It’s worth picking the book up just for this bit of history alone, but then you’ll have the added bonus of recipes for their mussels and French fries, so it’s a win-win.

In the cookbook, Hughes describes McNally’s first encounter with eating out, something his family never did. The year was 1968, and McNally was 17 and an actor, working in a play by Alan Bennett called Forty Years On in a theater in the West End of London. After the show, he went out with some of the cast for dinner at a place called Bianchi’s in Soho. He ordered melon. “It was the first time I’d ever eaten—or seen—a melon,” McNally says in the book. “The problem was that I didn’t know where to stop eating it and ended up going through the skin and onto the plate.” My how thin ... [more, click below]

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Posted: March 5, 2007

Other restaurants in West Village :
+ Jefferson-- Closed   + La Palapa Rockola   + Sumile   + Babbo   + Tasca   + AOC Bedford   + Home   + The Spotted Pig   + Barbuto   + Numero 26   + Mas   + August   + Alta   + Cru   + Blue Mill Tavern-- Closed   + Employees Only   + Lassi   + Metropol--Closed   + Turks and Frogs   + Bellavitae   + Yumcha-- CLOSED   + Gusto: SEE EARLIER REVIEW; THIS CHEF HAS LEFT GUSTO   + Perry Street   + Home   + Ditch Plains   + The Little Owl   + Cafe Condesa   + Cafe Cluny   + Gusto   + The Waverly Inn   + Morandi   + P*ONG   + Perilla   + Soto   + Market Table   + Centro Vinoteca   + Barfry   + Dell'Anima   + Bar Blanc   + Smith's   + Commerce   + Elettaria   + Bar Q   + Cabrito   + 10 Downing   + Minetta Tavern   + Braeburn   + Scuderia, by guest reviewer Kathleen Squires   + Bar Blanc Bistro by Guest Reviewer Kathleen Squires   + Joseph Leonard   + Bar Henry, by Guest Reviewer Kathleen Squires   + Kin Shop   + Monument Lane   + Wong   + Bin on Bleecker, by Dara Pollak   + Ristorante Rafele   + Cole's Greenwich Village by Guest Reviewer Claire Jaffe   

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