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“Maialino”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Italian	Gramercy	Moderate	Great

Now is the time of resolutions. 2010 is fresh and (relatively) untarnished. A clean slate lies ahead. In terms of resolutions, many of us make commitments relating to food. We vow to eat healthier, to cook more at home, to buy local, to cut back on those fries, to reign in the junk food. If your culinary vows include any of the previous promises, stop reading this review now. A vow of culinary chastity is not one that will survive a visit to this restaurant. But if your resolutions include, say, a promise to dine on superb Italian food, in a restaurant with exceptional service, consider Maialino, Danny Meyer’s excellent new Romanesque restaurant in the Gramercy Park Hotel, your one-stop resolution fulfillment center.  

The restaurant’s kitchen is run by Gramercy Tavern alumni chef Nick Anderer (for more on Nick, read my Q&A with him of a few weeks back), and its mission is to recreate the experience of dining at a trattoria in Rome. I have had the pleasure of eating many meals in Rome while my friend Susie was living there and as you might imagine, it is an experience I’d like to repeat often. The all'amatriciana, the pizza bianco, the gelato, the coffee. And you can sanctify me in their homemade mozzarella any day. Even the dirt in Rome is tasty. But here in Gramercy, a thoughtful reproduction of the classic Roman kitchen is alive and well and here to fill you up.  

The design is the first element that takes you to Italy. While there are (gratefully) no Chianti bottles covered in straw, there are other less Mulberry Street-like design elements that bring your Roman holiday to life. There are the large windows that open up onto Gramercy Park, a nice departure from the full metal jacket treatment the windows got in its former unfortunate incarnation as Wakiya. Walk inside and you’ll find a welcoming and bustling bar room with café tables for two and four open to walk ins, tall high tops to lean on while share a quartino of wine and some freshly sliced salumi or arancini, and a gracious marble bar, with wines and beers and snacks handwritten in white onto black chalk boards. In the dining room, you’ll find intricately tiled floors and tables covered with white linen draped over trattoria-styled gingham checked cloths. It’s cozy but cool.

As is the way in Italy, the menu progresses from salumi to antipasti, primi (pasta) and secondi. While this is the way Italians ea ... [more, click below]

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Posted: January 5, 2010

Other restaurants in Gramercy :
+ Casa Mono/Bar Jamon   + Pure Food & Wine   + Parea   + Gramercy Tavern (Lunch)   + 15 East   + Tocqueville   + Irving Mill   + Bar Milano   + Irving Mill   + Maialino   + Asellina   + Corkbuzz Wine Studio   + Breads, by guest reviewer Tracy Weiss   

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