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“Ciano”


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

I needed to use the rest room. I bring this up for a specific reason, and it’s a word of warning about Ciano. The ladies bathrooms are meat lockers. There seems to be a full-blast Arctic wind channeling itself through the ladies room in the rear of the restaurant. I recommend bringing a parka or a large wooly animal to keep you warm while you do what you need to do. I don’t dawdle when I am in a public rest room, and I was in and out in less than 3 minutes, but I felt like I needed to be thawed out in front of the fire when I finally got out. Perhaps they can build a fireplace in the restroom? Or at least employ some heat.

Back at the table, I was warmed from the inside out by the best dish of the evening. I have two words for you that must be uttered next time you find yourself at a table at Ciano: lamb chops! Gallante’s are the otherworldly. Tender, juicy, and just luscious, they are served on a hash of sorts crafted from braised lamb belly, Swiss chard, caramelized fennel, and apple. Tada! What magic. The only odd thing about this dish is that the chef cuts the chops off the bones and sends the severed rack out on the side, I guess as evidence of his butchering technique? The bones are beautifully frenched, but they kind of look funny just sitting there on a plate severed from their meaty chops. Not sure what that’s about, but if you have a dog or someone at home who likes to chew on bones, this will make a nice token to return with. Sea bass was also good, an object of beauty: a plump alabaster fillet topped with a tapenade set in a vivid tomato and herb broth bobbing with fat black gigante beans ($28). But it could not compete with those phenomenal chops.   

After our dinner was cleared, we contemplated dessert, but were too full to entertain anything more. While we waited for our check, we scrolled through a little iPod touch slide show that Susie had made of the various moments in our many years of friendships: dinners out, summer in the North Fork, vacations in Italy and Brazil, and Sunday brunches across the city. We have known each other a long time and through many different phases of life. As we sat at Ciano, swiping fingertips over the glass of a machine the size of a deck of cards, moving from moment to moment, I felt incredibly lucky to have shared all those times together. To be honest, there was also a sadness, because those times have become fewer and much farther in between. There ... [more, click below]

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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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