02.03.08
Review of Bellavitae, Thursday November 2007
24 Minetta Lane & 6th Ave, 212-473-5121 [now closed, sadly]
Great for: large parties, simple Italian food, oenophiles
The Boyfriend and I had heard that this was “the poor man’s Babbo” and other wonderful things, so we organized dinner here for us and seven friends. (I am only reviewing the dishes I actually tried.) We felt like we were in a rustic Italian farmhouse as soon as we walked in – well, maybe a very rich farmer’s house, since it’s quite large. It turns out that Bellavitae sells high-end pastas, olive oils, etc. to many of the restaurants in the city, and those lovely pictures on the walls are of their suppliers. The whole place feels quite warm and welcoming.
We started with shared appetizers. The crostini with chicken liver were a bit too liver-y for my taste, but pretty good. The beef carpaccio was good, as were the figs wrapped in bacon. The bread-lovers among us enjoyed the gnocco fritto, which is basically fried bread with Parma prosciutto. The bocconcini ricotta di bufala were little balls of wonderfulness, definitely the best appetizer, followed closely by the stellar polpettine (meatballs). The consistency of the food is impressive – out of six starters, we liked them all.
The entrees maintained the same high quality. The tagliata steak in Sangiovese reduction was quite good, although a little sweet. The spaghetti cacio e pepe, made very simply with pecorino Romano and grated black pepper, was nearly as yummy as the same dish at Cacio e Pepe the restaurant (one of my favorites). The spaghetti with dried tuna and peperoncini was spicy and tasty. Our only objection to the risotto Milanese was that there wasn’t enough of it to fully satisfy our lust for cheesy, rice-y deliciousness. And the paccheri with lamb ragù was fantastic, with perfectly al dente flat, wide, paper-thin noodles.
It’s a good thing we got some sides to share as well, since the entrees were rather small. We liked the cauliflower,though we could have done without the currants and pine nuts in it. The giant green peppers were a hit, as were the potatoes. The swiss chard was the only unpopular thing – it was kind of blah. To make up for it, the radicchio was hands-down the best appetizer, especially the bits where it was slightly burned. So basically almost everything was great. We were all really impressed.
We’d shared probably two bottles of wine by this point so for dessert we had different kinds of alcohol. The amari are flavored dessert drinks that Bellavitae serves in glasses about the same size as regular drinks. We got vanilla, coffee, almond and butterscotch. They’re light-colored and taste lovely. You can almost forget you’re still drinking.
This was such a great experience all around. We had a very friendly waitress who patiently put up with us chatting and forgetting to look at our menus. She managed to get the nine dishes of each course out at about the same time, and she was unfailingly helpful about all of our questions. She seemed to have several other tables to take care of, but still made sure to keep our wineglasses reasonably topped up. The restaurant lived up to its appearance of being cozy and friendly extremely well, and all of us are definitely going back soon.
Rating: 8 / 10
Our cost: $80 each for 9 people, 2 bottles of wine and a few simple cocktails
Noise level: good
Chance of walking in: pretty good.
