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“Ciano”

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

It’s always sad to see a good restaurant go, but it happens. Time goes by, the chef may move on, the management may lose focus, the public may tire of the concept, whatever the case may be. The doors close. It may take ten years, it may take twenty, it may take two. In the case of Beppe, it took about a decade. Today, if you stroll by that Tuscan farmhouse, a sweet sienna-stained bungalow on 22nd Street, you’ll find a new name on its door: Ciano, a fantastic new restaurant from chef Shea Gallante. Gallante, you will recall, was most recently serving intricate, lovely, and elegant food at Cru, a serenely serious restaurant on lower Fifth Avenue where wine was really the star.

At Ciano, he’s channeling his Italian roots along with ghosts of restaurants past and the lessons he learned at the knee of his Italian culinary mentors Pino Luongo and Lidia Bastianich. It’s a new paradigm for him and it’s working out quite well. That being said, I have very fond memories of Beppe, and I was sad to see it go. Susie, Jamie, Adrienne, and I shared many meals together there in our previous lives when we were all single and silly. We spent many nights in front of that blazing hearth drinking too many bottles of wine and tearing through plates of butcher’s pasta and piles of rosemary dusted fries. It was a place we returned to again and again for its warmth, its host (Tom Piscitello), and the food. I remember one night, Susie brought us each a “gift” of some new muffins she had been experimenting with. We still refer to them as the bran bricks. Another night, after a disappointing dinner somewhere else, we were in the mood for something good for dessert before heading home. We stopped in at Beppe and ordered a chocolate dessert to share. Adrienne brought the waiter back a few minutes after we had placed our order and sent him to the kitchen for the rosemary dusted fries, which she proceeded to dip into our chocolate dessert for a little added flavor. I tried it too. Chocolate coated salty French fries? Not half bad.

Years later, still silly, but graying around the edges, we returned to the scene of those chocolate dipped frites to sample the menu at the newly opened Ciano. The restaurant was packed tighter than a Vince sample sale at lunch hour, and with all that bulky winter dressing narrowing the pathway through the bar area to the dining room which is still warmed by a romantic fire-breathing hear ... [more, click below]

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Posted: December 12, 2010

Other restaurants in Flatiron :
+ Suenos   + Amuse-- Closed   + Dos Caminos   + Lucy-- Closed   + Gramercy Taver   + Veritas   + Fleur De Sel   + Bolo -- CLosed   + City Bakery   + Shake Shack   + Kalustyan's Cafe   + Devi   + BLT Fish   + Sugarcane   + BLT Prime   + Barca 18-- CLOSED   + Beppe   + Barbounia   + Boqueria   + Eleven Madison   + Lonesome Dove-- CLOSED   + Hill Country   + Olana   + Wildwood   + Primehouse   + Allegretti   + Bar Breton   + Aldea   + SD26 by Bao Ong   + ABC Kitchen   + Ciano   + The NoMad   

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