Category Archives: Italian

Italian, Midtown West, Pizza, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Capizzi Pizzeria Italiana

May 23, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I recently became aware of Capizzi when I was invited for a couple of press dinners. It is situated right between my wife and my work places, so it was an easy spot to try out on a whim.

This cozy little joint is tucked away under the bridge on 9th Avenue at Port Authority.

When you walk in, you feel like you’re at someone’s house that has been temporarily transformed into a dining room. The old tube TV and the floor-standing, old timey radio have been moved aside to make room for guests. They even have and old school fridge and ice box along the cabinetry on one side of the room…

…and dried peppers hanging from the ceiling, just like at grandma’s house.

Which they crush into their own house crushed red pepper, served alongside dried oregano that is still on the stems. Just like home!

By 6pm on the Friday before Memorial Day, when people are itching to vacate the city, this place was already jumping WITH A LINE OUT THE DOOR AND DOWN THE STREET. Completely full. Wow!

The plates mirror this cozy home feeling, and it’s no wonder Capizzi was jammed up from such an early time… because everything was awesome. And it boasts an extensive Wine selection for all you wine drinking folks out there. In my two visits, I got to taste pretty much all their wines by the glass. The montepulciano, nero d’avola, lambrusco, chianti, and muscato were all great.

Our waiter Andre started us off with a couple of glasses of sangiovese on our first visit, which is one of my favorite varietals. The cool thing about the second visit was that he was there again, but this time just visiting on his off-day to say hello to friends, which I thought was pretty cool. He remembered us too! Great guy. On the second trip we had the pleasure of being served by Sami as our waitress, and Javier as bus boy. Service here is impeccable! Javier was fast, attentive, and very nice. Sami was a sweetheart, and made excellent suggestions for what to order. The people running Capizzi definitely know how to choose good quality staff.

We had a plate of soft, tasty burrata cheese that was garnished with basil, artichoke hearts, sliced grape tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and prosciutto – all lightly drizzled with olive oil. It was excellent. Simple and delicious.

Next came the antipasto misto: a plate of Italian meats, cheese, olives, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and eggplant. A nice way to double down on our starter plate. As you can see in the pic, Andre again served us from the main plate. Top notch service here!

The antipasto came with a basket of toasted, lightly cheesed flatbread. Naked pizza, if you will. Really airy and crispy. We took this home with us since we couldn’t finish it all, and wanted to save room for pizza.

On trip number two we tried two salads – HUGE portion sizes. Definitely can split these. These were both very simple dishes that showcased incredible, fresh ingredients. In the first case, cucumber, roasted red peppers, and really top quality olive oil.

The other salad was a simple, refreshing fennel and orange salad. Again massive portion size, and very tasty.

Then comes the pizza. We ordered a regular Margherita pie with some arugula and prosciutto on top. The pie was doughy yet crisped and lightly charred on the surfaces and crust. This kind of perfection can only be achieved with an authentic wood burning brick oven.

The sauce was deftly applied with just the right volume and ratio to the crust and cheese. It had a very slight sweetness to it, which was cut nicely by the peppery arugula and salty prosciutto. The cheese was fresh and melty, and on top there was some fresh grated parmesan cheese for that earthy kick. We devoured every bite of this masterpiece.

On a second visit we tried two pies. First the margherita pie – your basic cheese and sauce pizza. It was fucking PERFECT. Words escape me right now as I try to describe it. It was crisp, yet soft. It was savory, fresh, and juicy from point to crust. Honestly this is now my favorite pizza in New York, and I grew up a spoiled pizza brat.

The other pie we tried was on special for the night, and was topped with speck, prosciutto, arugula and mozzarella. This was really great. In fact, pretty much every pizza on the menu sounds enticing. My wife and I plan to move back into the city this summer, and this area is one of or top choices for location. Needless to say, Capizzi will be our go-to pizza joint, no question. Look at how amazing the pizza is…

We finished off the meal with my wife’s favorite classic dessert, tiramisu, on our first visit. It was good – nice and light, not too boozy; a great ending to a wonderful meal.

On the second visit, we took advice from our waitress Sami to try the Oreo truffle cannoli. She hit the nail on the head. It was just the right amount of sweet without being overpowering. It was flavorfully unique, but with enough tribute paid to the classic cannoli dessert not to offend any traditionalist sensibilities. And as always, the plating was beautiful to boot.

As a pizza aficionado, I definitely recommend this place to those looking for a great pie (no single slices here – for that you need to go to Saluggis). Do yourself a favor and go here ASAP. I think for sit-down, full-pie pizza, this is absolutely my new favorite place to go.

An interesting side note about this place:

“They got an old-fashion’ toilet… You know… The box, and, and, and, ah the chain-thing… We might be able to tape the gun behind it.”

– Tessio

CAPIZZI
547 9th Ave
New York, NY 10018

Italian, Restaurant Reviews, West Village

Scarpetta

April 19, 2014 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

UPDATE: THIS JOINT IS NOW CLOSED

Scarpetta is a legit excellent Italian restaurant. Scott Conant, of “Chopped” judging fame, is the owner. My wife and I went here to celebrate our 5th anniversary. Here’s a quick photo dump with some info about each item. Eat here. Fucking do it.

First is the table bread. Its a really amazing selection of warm & crispies that comes with olive oil, mascarpone butter, eggplant tomato sauce and a pair of stromboli: broccoli rabe and salami. So much for not eating meat on Good Friday!

Next is the creamy polenta topped with truffled mushrooms. Really decadent and delicious.

And the sfornato: duck leg atop a savory custard with pickled sunchoke. Amazing.

Now the pasta. First was the saffron cavatelli with oxtail. Delicious, though a touch too salty for my preference.

My wife had the agnolotti with marrow and braised short rib inside. These were great, and unexpectedly light.

At this point we were fucking stuffed, but there’s always room for meat. Goat meat in fact. This capretto was in the style of ossobuco or braised shank, though made up of many parts of the animal. Served with chopped broccoli rabe. Scrum-diddly-umptious.

We were too full for dessert unfortunately, but we did have a fake sighting of Alex Guarnaschelli on the way out. Both my wife and I could swear it was her, but I asked her on twitter and she said that it wasn’t her. Pretty cool that she even responded.

SCARPETTA
355 W. 14th St.
New York, NY 10014

American, Commentary, Food Halls, Italian, Midtown West, Ramen, Restaurant Reviews, Spanish

Gotham West Market

March 15, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Hell’s Kitchen NYC is really starting to put meaning into the KITCHEN aspect of the neighborhood’s name. Not only have many great restaurants popped up recently, but now there are half a dozen ramen shops, several awesome burger joints, and even a smattering of small niche joints serving things like like Korean fried chicken or Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches. The most recent thing on my radar is Gotham West Market. It’s basically an upscale food court featuring a bunch of really nice pop-up restaurants, a gourmet food market, and even a store selling kitchen items, cooking gear, and baking supplies.

I first came here to try the Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop.

My wife and I tried the Shio and Shoyu styles. They were both good, but they contained green onion cut in such a way that it became overbearing and difficult to pluck off of the noodles. I like a standard cross cut to my scallions. This “long ways” cut sucks. The soup base was good, on the other hand, and the rye noodles were delicious.

My wife went back two times without me and tried most of the other spots in there, like The Cannibal, El Colmado, Little Chef, The Brooklyn Kitchen, Genuine Roadside, and Court Street Grocers Sandwich Shop. Poke around her Instagram feed to see some of her escapades. Or simply hit up the #gwmarket tag on there. Here are a couple of collages of her pics:

So today we went in for lunch, which was my wife’s 4th time going in 3 weeks, since I have been dying to try some of the stuff I’ve seen on Instagram from El Colmado and The Cannibal. I’ll take these fuckers down one at a time for you below.

THE CANNIBAL
We sat down to a nice beer and a Bloody Mary to start. The Bloody came with some pickled items on top – a beet, a cucumber, and a pepper.

We ordered three items here. The first was an octopus terrine, garnished with some pickled fennel and dill. This was so amazing, especially after having such a shitty plate of octopus two nights earlier at a local Long Island restaurant that completely fucked the octo up, turning it into rubber. THIS, on the other hand, was a masterpiece. Soft, tender, juicy, and nicely dressed – just like a prom date. One of the best octo preparations I’ve ever tasted.

Next up was the pig head terrine. Essentially a head cheese of sorts. It was really tender and flavorful, and it even had some capers jammed in there too for a nice bite of brine. They served it with some crispy bread, lemon butter, and herbs. Delicious.

Last was the lamb tartare. You can see below that it’s sitting on top of the little mustard smear that mixed well with the flavorful meat. In the back were the little planks of lettuce upon which we spread the tartare before shoving into our mouths.

EL COLMADO
I was excited to have some shaved-by-hand cured piggy, so we started with an order of sliced Serrano ham. Not too salty, very soft and delicious. I expected nothing less in terms of quality when it comes to Chef Seamus Mullen, of The Next Iron Chef fame.

In keeping with the theme from The Cannibal, we doubled down on octopus and lamb items. First is the lamb meatballs. Succulent, juicy, and rich with lamby goodness.

The octopus here was grilled to perfection and served with some vinegary fingerling potatoes. Very nice tasting, and beautifully plated I might add. Needless to say, all memory of terrible octopus from the local Long Island place has been erased. This was superb.

Well – not all memory is erased. We still need to remember that is WAS bad, and that we will never go back there again. Ahh, El Colmado & The Cannibal – you made my day. Two of the finest places I’ve been to in a long time.

So anyway, we finished up at El Colmado with a nice saffron flan for dessert. Perfect texture, and great flavor.

So what’s the moral of this story? GO TO GOTHAM WEST MARKET ASAP!

And if you like burgers, then check out my Genuine Roadside review.

There’s something there for everyone. I snapped a shitload of pics from all over in there – I’ll leave you with that:

GOTHAM WEST MARKET
600 11th Ave.
New York, NY 10036

Italian, Midtown West, Porterhouse, Rib Eye, Steakhouse Reviews

Bistecca Fiorentina

February 12, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Bistecca Fiorentina overall score: 80

UPDATE: THIS PLACE IS NOW CLOSED

My wife and I came here for a quick meal before catching the opening night performance of Rocky (the musical) on Broadway. Stallone showed up at the end of the performance so it made all the singing and dancing worth while.

Anyway this little pre-theater joint had a great looking menu. It turned out to be a great meal.

Flavor: 7
For steaks, we shared a rib eye and a single cut porterhouse. The rib eye was flavorful and cooked nicely at a medium rare. It had a few gristled spots and was generally pretty thin, but overall I liked it. The porterhouse was good too, and served with a gravy of some kind, as well as a rosemary, butter-garlic and white wine gravy (and a steak sauce, which I didn’t use much). Since the porterhouse was served on a hot plate and pre-sliced, however, it overcooked a little as it sat there. Still pretty tasty though.

Choice of Cuts & Quality Available: 7
The cuts were aged and in general good quality. As noted above, my rib eye was a little gristled and thin. They offered all the four basics in terms of cuts, and even a few outliers.

Portion Size & Plating: 7
Portions here are good. My rib eye was probably about 14-16oz, bone-in, and about an inch or slightly less in thickness. ALthough that’s a little small, it was reflected fairly in the price at only $36. It compared with the rib eye sizes at Keens, Bull & Bear and Dylan Prime. The porterhouse for one was 32oz, which was a good size, and also at a fair price.

Price: 9
Our bill came to $180. Pretty great considering how much we got to eat. We ordered two cocktails, a big seafood tower, two steaks, and a side.

Bar: 7
This place is situated in the ground floor space of a brownstone building just west of the theaters, on 46th between 8th and 9th. I didn’t expect much from the bar but it was actually set up in a nice spot where you could gaze outside and hang out for a drink. The martini was well made as well – maybe could just use some bigger olives.

Specials and Other Meats: 9
There was a big menu of special items that I assume varies each week or even each day. They offered lamb, veal, chicken, pork, all of it. They even had this incredible looking hunk of prosciutto sitting in a vintage, hand-cranked meat slicer right in the middle of the dining room. I asked about it: fully operational and they use it when people order prosciutto.

Apps, Sides & Desserts: 8
For an app we had the seafood tower, which I will discuss in more detail below. On the side we had a plate of fried artichokes. They were interesting. A little dense/heavy, and you had to eat around the pinchy parts just above the quartered heart, but I enjoyed. To our surprise the porterhouse for one came with a small side of creamed spinach. It was actually great; not too salty or overly creamy, great spinach flavor. We had no room for dessert, plus we wanted to get to the theater.

Seafood Selection: 9
There’s a lot of nice looking seafood on the menu; and I assume it is all nice quality because the price points were almost the same as the steaks. While we didn’t get the branzino or the sea bass, we DID order the hot & cold seafood platter for two. That came with four oysters, four clams, four scallops, three shrimp, three grilled & breaded langostines, a lobster tail, and a king crab leg. Everything was delicious, and the platter rivaled those in some of the best steak joints in the city.

Service: 10
The staff was excellent. All the waiters were dressed to impress, including the bartender. Nick, one of the guys working the floor, is actually related to the Ben & Jacks folks, so you know this little steak place comes from good breeding stock. Our waiter served slices of the steak onto our plates for us, dressed it with sauce, and even did it all again when he saw we were clearing the first set of slices. Water was always filled, and the table was cleaned and neatened between courses. The table breads consisted of bruscetta (two pieces) and a nice hunk of crispy bread. Maybe one suggestion would be to bring the bread out at a warmer temperature, and with softer butter.

Ambiance: 7
Obviously this place isn’t set up for the kind of experience you get at Keens or Quality Meats, where they dump millions of dollars into the decor. The walls are exposed brick, the floors are weathered wood, and there are no big fancy booths. But it is clean and nice, and they do have Sinatra on the stereo system. Take it at face value: this is a nice little bottom-of-the-brownstone restaurant geared for the pre-theater crowd, with curbside dining during the nice weather. It serves good food (and great seafood) at fair prices, and the staff is incredible.

BISTECCA FIORENTINA
317 W. 46th St.
New York, NY 10036

American, Italian, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, Union Square/Flatiron

Corkbuzz Wine Studio

January 20, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I’m not quite sure how to handle this write-up for the website. Is it a review, or commentary? Corkbuzz isn’t a steakhouse, and this meal is kind of a “limited time offer,” so I am going to go with commentary, and not give it a full steakhouse review.

Corkbuzz is a unique place in the food world. Primarily it is a wine bar and wine-centric restaurant, but it is also a home-base for wine education, according to their website. As you all may know, I am generally a martini kind of guy, despite the fact that me, my father, and my grandfather all make/made wine (I’ve even made flavored meads, or honey-based wines). Seriously – and I’m not saying this just because he’s my dad: the best wine I’ve ever tasted was my dad’s pinot noir, which he made from scratch with fresh grapes.

So anyway – a buddy of mine emailed me asking if I knew anything about this place, and if I thought the “Steakhouse Sundays” deal was good. He showed me this page:

$500 for 6 people, including tip, with 4 bottles of wine, Pat LaFrieda rib eye, and sides/apps?!?? Uhh… YES… no brainer, that is a GREAT fucking deal! So I told my wife about it, and we decided that we had to jump on it as well. Check out the results below:

First we sat at the bar and waited for our party to arrive. Nice view, and the cocktails were awesome.

Once seated, they presented the first wine:

And brought us the wedge salad:

And shrimp cocktail (a little pathetic, but whatever…)

Next came the red wines…

Then the sides arrived… Roasted cauliflower, and creamed spinach…

Then the steak with potatoes and onion rings…

And finally a pumpkin bread pudding dessert with ricotta whipped cream…

Here are the wines again, for those who are all about it…

Everything was great. We were all full, but not ridiculously over-stuffed to the point of vomitude. The steak was great. I noted that it was a little under-salted, but the steak sauce (some kind of wine reduction) was plenty salty to inject that back into the meat. The sides were all great – especially the roasted cauliflower. The creamed spinach was a bit too firm for my liking, but it was nice that it wasn’t so overly creamy. The potato item would have been better if it was crispy (was a little soggy), but overall a really great meal. The wine alone was worth the price we paid.

CORKBUZZ WINE STUDIO
13 E. 13th St.
New York, NY 10003

American, Full Points for Flavor, Italian, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, West Village

Piora

September 28, 2013 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

First, you have to watch this video:

Okay… So that is the whole reason we went here. I needed to do an honorable mention here just for that alone, despite the joint not being a true steakhouse. Well, I needed to try that steak AND sample their ridiculously delicious sounding menu, which you can see HERE. I think we tried most of the items on the menu. Seriously.

We started with a few of their awesome drinks from the cocktail menu, which were painstakingly crafted by this dude, who shaved chunks of ice by hand to fill the glasses.

Check out his arsenal of wizard potions too:

Okay so after that we ordered up some monkey bread for $6. A dollar per lump, each about the size of a mini-muffin or small cupcake. My biggest negative of the dining experience – this item should’ve been free. It was small, and I’ve had better bread for free at places like BLT Prime, Quality Meats, Quality Italian, Tellers, etc. This was essentially the same bread as the stuff at Quality Italian, but it cost $6 instead of nothing. Oh – it came with a seaweed butter (big deal) and some nice lard (that was yummy).

Next we shared some starters: BBQ octopus and duck confit. Unfortunately I forgot to snap pics of those items, but they were both really delicious.

An amuse was brought out to us next: apple with chartreuse and beet:

For pre-entrées we shared four items between the four of us: black garlic bucatini with Dungeness crab and chilis; (Riders of) Rohan duck (that’s a LoTR reference, by the way), suckling pig, and sea trout. All were small portions, so it was easy to sock away with four hungry diners. I won’t get into the serious specifics here, since this is a fucking steak blog, not a duck and pig blog, but the pasta was really nice with the crab meat on top. The aged duck was frigging awesome – may as well have been a steak; that’s how flavorful and legit this fucker was. The pork was soft inside with a nice crispy outside. See pics below. And as for the trout – some of the best crispy fish skin I’ve had to date.

Sea Trout. See Trout Swim. See Trout Get Eaten. — Sea Trout.
See Trout Swim.
See Trout Get Eaten.

We sided that shit up with an order of sunchokes with hazelnut, topped with parmesan cheese. Really great shit.

Now for the good shit – the steak. The special, secret, off-menu, bone-in, 40oz rib eye/cote de beouf was … Well … You saw the video. It was fucking great. It ranks #2 in best steaks from a non-steakhouse; behind only the great and powerful Marc Forgione (who just opened a new steakhouse in Tribeca, by the way, called American Cut). This steak was nice – it had a bacon candy-like taste on the edges; great sear, locking in the flavor. The meat was tender, cooked just right. Take a look at the pics, before and after slicing:

It came with two side items: olive oil potato balls, and spigarello (which is best described as broccoli flavored kale, sautéed with garlic and oil). I didn’t care much for the potato balls, but the spigarello was nice. You can sorta see those items here in the plating:

For dessert we had a scoop of salted caramel ice cream (not pictured), and an order of the white peach shaved ice, which sat on a coconut panna cotta with some blueberry sauce. THAT was really flavorful. I wish I had ordered three or four of those for my entrée. The coconut panna cotta was so light and fluffy. Totally gobble-worthy.

And then the bill came:

And then I took a dump in the bathroom. And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

PIORA
430 Hudson St.
New York, NY 10014

American, Full Points for Flavor, Italian, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, Tribeca

Marc Forgione

April 19, 2013 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Iron Chef Marc Forgione’s restaurant in Tribeca is amazing. Recently my wife came upon an article that featured the pig face platter; a dish that comprises a half a pig face and some side items that vary with each week (our week was a taco theme, as is pictured in the article, with a ramp sour cream, jicama salsa, etc.). They don’t offer it every week, and when they DO offer it, it is only on Thursdays. Well, our anniversary fell on a Thursday this year – so it was perfect. With nervous anticipation my wife called several times inquiring about whether pig face would be on the menu. Yesterday morning they gave the definitive “yes.” We were psyched.

Look at this delicious face! The cheek meat was incredibly soft and juicy, and the skin all over was unbelievable; you know the kind… sticky and fatty on one side, crispy and savory on the other. Perfection.

For our meal we started with a nice octopus salad – really fantastic. Then we had the piggy face. Afterward we shared a massive 40oz french cut cowboy rib eye. Take a look at how amazing it looks (if only you could “see” how amazing it tasted too). I can’t rank Marc Forgione on this website because it’s not a steakhouse, but, if I were going to, this would get a 10 for flavor.

As you can see in this shot it came with side items (a composed dish, as they say): carrot juice glazed carrot, some roasted potatoes, and roasted bone marrow. The steak itself was topped with a chimichurri sauce and little blobs of cold rosemary butter, which was nice because it didn’t melt into the meat and drench the plate in butter. You could pluck them off and spread it to your liking.

It was a heavy meal, and would’ve been heavier if we started off with the fois gras instead of the octopus. The waiter, Jason, was helpful in making sure we didn’t have a richness blowout when he suggested we go with the octopus based on the other stuff we were ordering. He was great by the way. So were the cocktails. The service here in general is fantastic (definitely a 10). We even had a personalized “Welcome” / “Happy Anniversary” letter signed by Marc sitting at our table when we were seated, and at the end of the meal we had the pleasure of getting a glimpse of the culinary genius before we left.

We were also given a nice manager’s discount on the bill!

I hope Marc and his staff get a chance to see this post and this website. As a Carnivore Connoisseur, I think they would appreciate being mentioned as one of the best steaks in town, even when measured against establishments that ONLY deal in steak.

MARC FORGIONE
134 Reade St.
New York, NY 10013

SHARE THIS SHIT HERE:

SHARE THIS SHIT HERE:

SHARE THIS SHIT HERE:

Bistecca Fiorentina overall score: 80

SHARE THIS SHIT HERE:

SHARE THIS SHIT HERE:

SHARE THIS SHIT HERE:

SHARE THIS SHIT HERE:

carnivore connoisseur