Italian WIne Time New York Brunello

BRUNELLO Di MONTALCINO

BRUNELLO TASTING NEW YORK Today

January 27, 2014

NEW YORK, NY

Benvenuto Brunello

"Going to Tasting and Brunello Seminar in an hour. Will report back later or tomorrow ..

Daniel Bellino-Zwicke

SUNDAY SAUCE Is COMING "IT's HERE NOW"

First it was The "McRib" then TWINKIES, Now SUNDAY SAUCE ... All Great Food Things we all love .. New York writer Daniel Bellino Zwicke; authjor of "La TAVOLA" The Big Lebowski Cookbook GOT ANY KAHLUA ? The COLLECTED RECIPES of The DUDE and this Christmas Seasons Hot Book of The Moment "The FEAST of The 7 FISH" is about to Pulish another .. His long awaited book SUNDAY SAUCE on just that subject, Sunday Sauce aka "Gravy" will be out soon .. It's rumored the Kindle Edition of Sunday Sauce will be out November 30, 2013 and the paperback edition of SUNDAY SAUCE will be published Decmber 5 th and will be available on AMAZON on that date, just in time for Christmas. And a great present SUNDAY SAUCE will make .. It's filled as usual with Daniel with wonderful heart-warming stories of New York Italian-America, its characters, the Food, the Kitchen, restaurants, caffes, Pizzerias, Italian Pastry Shops, Pork Stores and everything that is wonderful about Italians and specifically as related to the food of Italy, as well as Italian-American Cuisine which Mr. Bellino points out is legitimate and deserves and demands respect .. This book SUNDAY SAUCE is sure to please and a "Must Have" for Italian-Americans everywhere as well as there American brethren of other persuasions, no matter, just about everyone loves Italian .. Filled with Meatballs, Sausage, Espresso, Maccheroni, and all the tasty Italian Favorites .. The book is filled with the favorite Italian-American dishes, but is centered and themed around the most Supreme Italian-American Dish of All "SUNDAY SAUCE" aka "GRAVY" or as some just call it "SAUCE"  ....

You been waiting, it's almost Thanksgiving, the wait is almost over, Sunday Sauce, Get It"

Fans of Daniel Bellino-Zwicke and His renowned books of Sunday Sauce, The Feast of The 7 Fish, Italians, New York Italian, and The ITALIAN-AMERICAN Lifestyle can pick up any other titles by Mr. Bellino that they might not already have, like" "La TAVOLA"

THE FEAST of The 7 FISH "Italian Christmas"

CLEMENZA'S MEATBALL SUNDAY SAUCE COOKBOOK

or THE BIG LEBOWSKI COOKBOOK  "GOT ANY KAHLUA" ? 

The COLLECTED RECIPES of THE DUDE

ALL TITLES Are AVAILABLE on AMAZON.com

The FEAST of The 7 FISH ITALIAN CHRISTMAS DINNER

Christmas Eve Fish Dinner is, without question, the most important, the most festive, the most familial, the warmest and most memorable family gathering. For me, Christmas Eve Dinner surpasses every other holiday, As important and delightful as Thanksgiving of Easter or even Fourth of July might be, nothing approaches the ineffable depth and richness of Christmas Eve Fish Dinner offered a table unlike that of any other holiday.

But before I go further, let's consider the name of this dinner. Among some Italians that I have questioned it is called "Feast of the Seven Fishes," for other families, including my own, it was simply Christmas Eve Fish Dinner. There was no specific number of fish involved. Carol Field' Celebrating Italy, a most thorough study of Italian holidays, notes that Christmas Eve dinner calls for fish but makes no mention of the number of fish dishes. Moving my investigation of the Christmas Eve dinner to Google Italy, I found that it is generally called "Il Cenone della Vigilia" (The great dinner of the Eve.) No Italian site I found made mention of the number of fish. I have the sense that the notion of seven fish may be Italian American and even here only among certain families.

The next question I considered was the type of fish. Almost every reference I found and all the people I interviewed had numerous variations. Among most Italians sites two fish appeared most often, baccalà and eel. Among traditional Italian Americans the two most common dishes were baccalà (usually in a cold salad recipe) and fried smelts. In many younger and less traditionally bound Italian Americans all the old time fish were gone. The new fish platters now included shrimp and fried fish and even fish sticks. Italian Americans are not alone in modernization. It seems that even in Italy the younger generations recoil at the notion of such fish as eel.

While what this dinner is rightly called and which fish are those to be presented seems to vary from region to region and family to family a few things about Christmas Eve fish dinner, go unquestioned. Christmas Eve fish dinner was the one dinner no one missed. Christmas Eve fish dinner was at the home of the patriarch or matriarch. Every child and grandchild was present. The power of the Italian American Christmas Eve dinner overwhelmed all other cultural influences. While the fish dinner may have been rooted in Italy it spread its branches to include and embrace not only those non-Italians who had married into the family but all those of other ethnic backgrounds who were friends beyond the family. Everyone with any association to the family was invited to the Christmas Eve fish dinner.

While all other holiday dinners gathered the family while there was still light in the sky, Christmas Eve Fish Dinner began sometime after sunset. It was and is, the only festive dinner in the Italian American tradition that is shared in darkness. All other holidays in the Italian American tradition are celebrated at the table sometime shortly after noon. Christmas Eve Fish Dinner always began sometime after six in the evening.

Christmas Eve Fish Dinner differs from all other dinners by its lack of structure. Other dinners, whether Sunday Gravy or Easter Sunday follow a certain formality. For other dinners there is always a soup course, an antipasto, the pasta, the main course and then the dessert. The Christmas Eve Fish Dinner was quite different. The Christmas Eve Fish Dinner had courses, but the courses were not single dishes. For the Christmas Eve fish dinner each course was composed of several offerings. And the whole dinner was preceded by a cold table of finger foods that allowed mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews to chatter for an hour or so before dinner began. The finger foods were set on small tables in the living room. The platters included olives, slices of celery and broccoli, and a dish of crackers. There were also plates of cooked shrimp with sides of shrimp cocktail sauce. The olives were from cans and the children liked to slide the pit wholes over their fingers as they chomped on the olives. I would guess that the shrimp and the horseradish based cocktail sauce was an influence from the fashionable restaurants of the time.

After at least an hour of nibbling on the side platters the dinner bell called us to the tables. Yes, tables. In our family there were three. In our center hall style house, the dining room table was turned towards the center hall. A second and third table were butted up to the main table. The three tables continued through the center hall into the living room. Seating was determined by age. The oldest sat in the dining room section; the younger the child the closer to the living room.

There was no soup on Christmas Eve. When we sat at the table we first saw a small bowl of whiting salad with lemon and a serving of "scungilli," conch. When I was small there was a cold baccalà salad with tomato. These cold fish salads were followed by the pasta. Of course, we never heard or used the word "pasta." For us the "pasta" dish was one of three possibilities. It changed from year to year. It could be either "Clams and Spaghetti," "Mussels and Spaghetti," or "Squid and Spaghetti." The spaghetti were always the very thin "angel hair" ("capellini.")

The next course is always a serving of several varieties of fried fish. My Irish background mother prepared several fish offerings in different ways. There are three central dishes. First, she made a tray of plain American fish sticks for the children and for those at the table of a less than Italian heritage. Then, as a middle ground, my mother makes the most exquisite crab cakes that would appeal to Italian traditionalists as much as to the non- Italian in-laws. For the old timers there is always the most wonderful finger food, fried smelts with lemon. There are also fried scallops, fried shrimp, fried calamari and fried oysters.

Following the fried dishes, the table is covered with several trays of broiled scallop, shrimp and clams. Then comes the main fish platter. This platter has no Italian precedent that I know of. My mother introduced this dish about thirty years ago: stuffed orange roughy papillote. The orange roughy papillote is made by splitting the fish into two pieces and filling with a layer of spinach with tomato, garlic and olive oil. The fish is wrapped in parchment and baked.

After a rest and an interlude of conversation the Christmas Eve Fish dinner is crowned by the dish everyone waits for, my mother's tray of Christmas cookies. We began at five in the evening. After the cookies it is after 11. The culmination of the Christmas Eve Fish Dinner is Midnight Mass. Following Christmas Midnight Mass the family came home to a wonderful breakfast of eggs and bacon and, in Philadelphia, of scrapple. The special delight of the breakfast was the Christmas Bread, a wonderful brioche-like pastry shaped in a ring and decorated with multi-colored sprinkles. But Christmas bread is another page.

by TONY D MORINELLI

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_D_Morinelli

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7394063

WINE DINNER With CINZIA TRAVAGLINI New York

GREAT GATTIINARA And NEBBIOLO FROM TRAVAGLINI

at TRAVAGLINI WINE DINNER With CINZIA TRAVAGLINI

Trattoria GUGINO

Tribeca NEW YORK

AWESOME GATTINARA From TRAVGLINI

With DAM TASTY PIZZA MARGHERITA

TRAVAGLINI TASTING DINNER at GUGINO

With Antonio (Palm Bay Imports)

CINZIA TRAVGLINI

and Author

Daniel Bellino-Zwicke

Been invited to a Wine Dinner tonight by Cinzia Travaglini to be held at Gigino Trattoria in Tribeca (New York, NY) ... Can't wait! Will be dining with Cinzia Travaglini, Chef Luigi, Antonio from Palm Bay and other restaurant wine people who have been lucky enough to get this rare and coveted invitation .. I don't know who the other guest are ..  Will report back tomorrow on the evening, the food, wine, and guests, etc..

THE REPORT

DINNER PRIVATE WINE TATSING With CINZIA TRAVAGLINI at GUGINO

We drank, we ate, whe talked we enjoyed .. A private tasting dinner with Cinzia Travaglini. Actually I thought there were going to be more people. Basically it was just me and Cinzia Travaglini tasting me on Travaglini's current vintages of fine wines. We were joined by ANtonio from Palm Bay, Travaglini's Importer, and then when we were finished eating, Chef Luigi joined our table as well. Cinzia started us out with her Nebbiolo Coste Della Sesia .. Travaglini is the unquestionable King of Gattinara, a small zone in northern Peidmonte .. The zone is only about 200 acres of which Travaglini comprises have of the entire zone. Gattinara is made mostly of Nebbiolo at 90 to 100% .. Gattinara may have up to 10% of Bonarda and Vespolina grapes, but all of the Travaglini Gattinara wines are made of 100% Nebbiolo ... Travaglini are Kings of Nebbiolo of which about 97% of their entire vineyards are planted to the grape, along with a very small amount of Uva Rara, Bonarda, and Vespolina .. Yes they are masters of Nebbiolo of which they have been growing since the 1920's ...

So Nenniolo and Gattinara are the thing of Travaglini .. They are the biggest as well as the most famous Gattinara with their signature Trademarked Gattinara Bottle .. OK, so we started out with the Nebbiolo Coste della Sesia which blew my mind. I absolutely loved the wine. It was in perfect balance, full of flavor, yet light in weight, the perfect combination in an Italian Wine which are among the most food friendly wines in the world. And that's what we were doing, food and wine, and yes friendliness too. This wine Coste della Sesia was an absolute marvel of a wine, that is very reasonably price and half to a third the price of the Travaglini Gattinara's which are at their price points quite reasonable for wines of the highest of quality. This is thought of as an entry level wine, but it is anything but. Yes I loved this wine that was perfectly in balance in flavor, tannic and acidic elements along with the correct weight and wonderful flavor of ripe berry fruits with a nice twinge of licorice, just lovely. Cinzia poured me just a little, but it was so good I had to ask for a little more, and then more a thrid and forth time. That's when you know a wine is good.

After the lovely Nebbiolo we moved on to the Gattinara's, thee wine of Travaglini .. We ordered some grilled Clamari and a Pizza Margherita and Chef Luigi sent us some special bread and a platter of Salumi. We all flipped for the Pizza which we all thought was the equal of the finest Pizza from Napoli "The Pizza Capital of The World." Well after all Chef Luigi is from Positano in the area near Naples on the gorgeous Amalfi Coast. We drank the Gattinara 2007 which as well as the Nebbiolo before was absolutely wonderful and a wine in perfect balance. Just delisous. It was then on to the Gattinara Riserva 2006, another winner, and then a very special and rare wine.

The special rare wine in question was il Sogno, which was a special project created by Cinzia's father Giancarlo Travaglini in 2004 ... Giancarlo wanted to make a dry table wine using the appassimento method of drying grapes before the fermentation process as with the famed wines of Amarone and the lesser known Sforvato of Lombardia. Giancarlo picked some of his best Nebbiolo Grapes and set them out to dry on matts. Unfortunately Giancarlo passed away in November of 20024 when the grapes had only been drying for 1 month. Cinzia and her winemaker husband continued the project.  They finished drying thr Nebbiolo grapes, fermented them and made the wine that tey called il Sogno "The Dream." 

So Cinzia poured me a glass of il Sogno, and again my mind was blown. The wine an absolute gem had all sorts of wonderful flavors running through my mouth. It was delisious, it had power, but not too much as some big AMarone sometimes do. The wine was a delight and I'm looking forward to putting it on my own list.

We also drank the Gattinara "Tre Vigna," The Three Vineyards .. The fruit for Tre Vigna comes from 3 very special small vineyards on the Travaglini Estate. These 3 different vineyards have different geographical vineyards on the estate and bring different characteristics to the wine to make up one complete and wonderful structure of a wine, 

Travaglini Gattinara "Tre Vigne"

 So we drank the fine wines from Cinzia Travaglini, we had perfect Pizza, Antipasti, followed by some wonderful Tagiatelle con Tartufo and Brasato di Manzo (Braised Beef), and finished up with some tasty desserts. It was a fine night and a dinner that along with the many wonderful private luncheons and dinners I have had over the years with some of Italy's most prestigious winemakers, like Cinzia, I remeber them all, and I will always remember this one, absolutely Wonderful!

Daniel Bellino-Zwicke

CINZIA TRAVAGLINI

WTC1 at NIGHT

WORLD TRADE CENTER 1

aka  FREEDOM TOWER

Looking Down From GUGINO'S

October  21, 2013

Tribeca, NEW YORK, NY

CARBONE BABBO NOT THE BEST ITALIAN

Yes, the best Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village is “Not” CARBONE, “Not” Babbo, and certainly not one of New York’s most “Overrated Restaurants of all, the gossly overrated Il Mulino, which is over-priced, good, but no where near to the high exaltation that those who know little of what makes a great Italian Restaurant give to it.

Greenwich Village without question is tops in New York when it comes to having a string of New York’s best of the best Italian Restaurants. There’s Babbo, the Uber Hot “Restaurant of the Moment,” CARBONE. There is Lupa, which for me and quite a number of others The Batali Bastianich’s best restaurant in New York, not Babbo, no Del Posto. Yes, we will get to Greenwich Village’s Best Italian Resataurant in a string of not only the Village, but all New York. The Best is without question Bar Pitti on 6th Avenue near Bleecker Street and smack dab right next to arch enemy # 1 Da Silvano, a restaruant the gave birth to Bar Pitti but a few years ago had a “Nasty Nasty” highly publicized break-up between former 50 /50 Partners Silvano Marchetto the creator and still owner of Da Silvan which for a number of years rained supremme as New York’s # 1 Hottest Celebrity Restaurant of all (I myself was Maitre’d there during 3 of those years). Anyway Bar Pitti for those in-the-know and those who “Know” what they are talking about, and not some Food Critic that knows just a tiny fraction of what many eithers more cable know. Really seriously under quilified people who are put into place as critics by such, supposedly reputable publications as The New York Time and New York Magazine. It’s a sin.

So yes, Bar Pitti is tops. The food is amazing. And most important, it’s consistenly amazing. The food is always the same. Same being is that dishes like Coda d’Vaccinara (Braised Oxtails) Veal Milanese, Paparadell con Sugo di Cinghiale (Wild Boar Ragu) are authenticall and perfectlly cooked and done so each and every time they are done. If you get one of these dishes or any other on the menu or one of the daily specials, it will be the same if you get it today and then 3 weeks or 3 months down the road. The cooks in that kitcehn are conssitent, consistently good, and near flawless. The food is great, the ambaince and decor quite nice and fitting to what a Italian restaurant should be and that people expect, and not over contrived over-done like some joints such as SD 26 or Georgio Armani’s new restaurant Armani Restorante, both over-done, not warm and in the spirit of a truely great Italian Restaurant and one such as Bar Pitti. Yes, wonderful decor, great food, consisitency, good service, and a super great vibe created by the clientele that frequent the spot, many of whome are in publsihing, movies, advertising, and other high profile positions. 

BAR PITTI

BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT GREENWICH VILLAGE

And ALL of NEW YORK

You can talk all you want about Babbo, which is good. I have had had numerous meals there. The experience is quite nice, with a wonderful warm ambiance, excellent servic and an area that they could teach Bar Pitti a thing-or-two. They have a great wine list, although not the best Italian List in the city as those who again don’t realy know have calaimed to it. That honor goes to Barbetta on West 46th Street which is so off-the-wall great, it makes Babbo’s fine wine-list look like childs play. If you don’t beleive me, check it out. The food at Babbo is very good, but I’ve got to tell you “not always.” I’ve had a few disappointing dished there, which were barely good and far from tasty. In the 21 years I’ve been eating at Bar Pitti I’ve never had such a dish that I’ve been disappointed with the way I have a couple times at Babbo, and I never remember being blown away with any dish the way I have been blown away by Bar Pitti’s Bolito di Manzo, Braised Oxtails, Tagiatelle with Black Summer Truffles or Trippa al Parmigiano, all Awesome. Hey, it may sound like I’m knocking Babbo. I’m not. It’s just that when so many think that one place is the best, and it really isn’t and it has more praise than it deserves and has been highly exalted by people like Frank Bruni and The New York Times and other prominent entities that irrisponsibly “miss-lead” the general public that doesn’t know any better. The general public is counting on entities like the New York Times to report factually. By buying a newspaper or magazine the are paying for good information and when publications like The NY Times, Time Out and othe publications put grossly under-qualified people in position as Food Critics when they know very little, and there are hundreds who know a thousand times fold more than a NY Times Food Critic, it’s is just plain wrong.

So, yes Babbo is dam good, though higher exalted then it really deserves, it’s not as far off the mark as one horrible restaurant around the block from it. A restaurant that is so Highly Over-Rated it’s sinful. This restaurant is IL Mulino, a restaurant that has good food, not great that is way over-priced expensive, the decor is dark and horrible, and the service annoyingly mechanical. The place is a Huge Dissapointement to those who actually know what constitutes a great restaurant, and more specifically a great Italian restaurant, one such as Bar Pitti … Basta !

DBZ

CARBONE TORISSI BOYS OPEN "ZZ" CLAM BAR

Torrisi Boys "Carbone Team" scrap Lobster Club idea to open "ZZ" Clam Bar, the  Carbone-Torissi Boys Trilogy is complete .. The so-called Torissi-Boys team of Rich Torissi, Mario Carbone and Jeff Zalaznick will now each have a restaurant named after themselves.

 Looks like Mario Carbone got his way on this one. Rumor has it that Mario was never in to the Lobster Roll idea. Zalaznick was hot on jumping on the Hot Lobster roll Band Wagon, Mario Carbone not so much, and we don't know how Rich Torissi felt on the subject. We're sure they all talked it out and in the end all decided against the Lobster Roll Joint in favor of  The Clam Bar which should complement their presence on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village along with, of course their hugely successful "Carbone" at 181 Thompson. Sure Foodies and most of New York is anxious to see the new joint ZZ Clam Bar and hoping for the best, and the Clam Bar should be a consolation prize for those trying to get into Carbone, but can't. Well, maybe not, the Clam Bar is to have just 12 seats itself. Should be interesting ....

“We are crazy about high-end raw fish,” he said. “And obsessed with cocktails.” 

...... Rich Torrisi, Chef / Partner ZZ CLAM BAR, CARBONE, & PARM

Picture Art-Work Property of Daniel Bellino-Zwicke

La TAVOLA Is ITALIAN In GREENWICH VILLAGE; Meatballs, SUNDAY SAUCE, PIZZA at JOHN'S PIZZERIA, ESPRESSO (Caffe Dante & Caffe Reggio) RAFFETTO PASTA for 100 Years, PORTO RICO COFFEE 100 YEARS, DaSILVANO,  BABBO, CARBONE,

BAR PITTI and More .. In Italian-American Greenwich Village Native's Daniel Bellino-Zwicke's "La TAVOLA"

CARBONE REPORT CARD

CARBONE

181 THOMPSON STREET

GREENWICH VILLAGE

NEW YORK

NEW YORK MAGAZINE 1 STAR  ...  Adam Platt

NEW YORK TIMES   3 STARS   of Possible 4  ... Pete Wells

NEW YORK POST 2 STARS of Possible 4 .. Steve Cuozzo

BLOOMBERG NETWORK  3 1/2 STARS

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER .... Joshua David Stein says "Carbone Makes a Case Greatness In A Red Sauce Joint"

GAEL GREENE The Insatiable Critic Gives CARBONE (Greenwich Village) High Marks After Going to "Wrong Carbone" in Hells Kitchen ...

BLOGS OVERALL:  Most like or Love Carbone. Some Don't, but Carbone defiantely comes out on the Plus Side with Bloggers.

NEW YORK TIMES 3 STARS CARBONE

Pete Wells, The New York Times food critic gives Carbone 3 Stars, but his Review barely rates a Fair. It was an awful Blase Review of New York's Hottest new Restaurant, Carbone. Don't get your signals crossed, Wells didn't right badly about Carbone, it's just that his writing style of this article wasn't very good, it was again, in fact Blase and harkens back to the awful New York Times Reviews of Frank Bruni .. The article had no sustenance, no pizzazz. Wells told as that the Vongole could have been more flavorful, The Tira Mi Su wasn't that good, that the Veal Parm was the way you always hoped it would be. He liked the Rigatoni and Tortellini, as well as Lobster Fra Diavolo and Scampi.

We've been waiting a few months for The New York Times to review Carbone and we gotta say, the reveiw is a disappointment. Grub Street, The New York Observer, New York Magazine, and even The New York Post put out better reviews to The Times Blase one.

Pete Wells generally writes a good review, but this one, as The Big Boys in Brooklyn would say, Fuhgettabout-it !!! You get a "Satisfactory" on this one Pete. In the end, not many will remember how poorly this review was written, but the fact that Carbone got a 3 Star New York Times review.  And I'm sure Mario Carbone and Rich Torissi could care less that the piece wasn't written very well, but that they got 3 Stars. For now on, that's all they are anyone will say, Three Stars from The New York Times. Basta!

CUOZZO DOESN'T Say "VEAL IS BEST In CITY" HE GIVES CARBONE 2 STARS

UNLIKE VIRGIL SOLOZZO in THE GODFATHER

CUOZZO DOESN'T Say "VEAL IS THE BEST In THE CITY"

Finicky (Notoriously "Off The Mark") New York Post Food Critic Steve Cuozzo gives Carbone a luke-warm 2 Stars and quotes The Godfather, saying" The Veal is not the Best in The City," a line made famous by Al Litieri as Vrigil Sollozzo tells crooked New York City Police Captain McColskey, when he ask, "How's the Italian Food in this restaurant (Louie's)?" Solozzo tels him to get the Veal, it's the best in the city. Well Cuozzo definitely didn't think that of the Veal at Carbone.

Cuzzo on Carbone's Pasta 

"Pasta monotonously lacked contrast or texture. Only one of six I tried rang the bell: modestly named, immodestly priced ($30) spaghetti de mare. The joy lay less in showoff elements like rock shrimp, bay scallops and razor clams, than in crackling tomato, garlic, chili, parsley and garlic. Most others evoked mediocre trattorias, especially dry and clumpy angel hair begging for more olive oil."

Cuzzo on Carbone's Clams:

Clams three ways batted .333; while oreganata clicked, neither lardo on top of casinos, nor sea urchin in a “fantasia” preparation was my idea of heaven.

Steve Cuozzo's Fianl Statement on Carbone:

"A restaurant born of so much talent and expectation should dazzle us from inizio alla fine. Carbone flickers like a teasing moon through billows of pomp — in a town full of truly great Italian places, it’s an offer I’ll gently refuse."

$50.00 VEAL PARMESAN Is ENOUGH For TWO

NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW "THE BIGGY" YET To COME

CARBONE vs CARBONE

THE RIGHT CARBONE!

OR IS IT WRONG?

Alessandor Altigieri (Owner Carbone Restorante 38th Street) has been getting a lot of extra business lately at his restaurant 

Carbone Restorante (aka The Wrong Carbone) in Hells Kitchen New York ... The source or root of the extra business is coming from an unlikely source, a rival New York restaurant, Carbone, New York's # 1 Hottest Restaurant of The Moment a.k.a. "The Right Carbone" down on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village.

Altigieri says he has been getting reservations request and delivery orders from people thinking they are ordering from the hot Carbone of the moment ... Altigieri also says, "Many people from Long Island or other places (New Jersey & Westchester) come by Limo, they "Eat" at my restaurant (by Mistake) and when they are finished they are very Happy ...

THE WRONG CARBONE!

OR IS IT RIGHT?

ROBERT DiNERO

as YOUNG "VITO CORLEONE"

THE GODFATHER PART II

NEW YORK ITALIAN RED-SAUCE RESTAURANTS "Past & Present"

GINO'S

NOW DEFUNCT

INSIDE GINO'S DINING ROOM

With IT'S

FAMOUS ZEBRA WALLPAPER

GINO'S 

WAS On Lexington Avenue

Across From Bloomingdale's

Now SADLY DISEASED 

I MISS IT SO

Second Avenue Near East 11th Street

Still There

Not as Good As It used To Be

But It's Still There and It's Over 100 Years Old

And Definitely OLD SCHOOL RED SAUCE ITALIAN

JOHN'S

SINCE 1908

And STILL GOING STRONG

Above and Below

ROCCO'S

In BETTER DAYS

NOW DECEASED

CARBONE IS THERE NOW

THE FAMOUS

ROCCO

NEON SIGN

The FAMED ROCCO SIGN

SUPERIMPOSED With CARBONE

CARBONE

In THE FORMER ROCCO SPACE

HOPING To BECOME 

A CLASSIC OLD SCHOOL

ITALIAN RED SAUCE JOINT

BUT THE PRICES ARE PROHIBITIVE

"VERY EXPENSIVE"

AND NOT IN-LINE

WITH WHAT AN OLD SCHOOL

ITALIAN RED SAUCE RESTAURANT

IS And SHOULD BE

THAT IS

A WELCOMING CASUAL RESTAURANT

THAT HAS A WARM ATMOSPHERE 

AND TASTY ITALIAN and ITALIAN-AMERICAN FOOD

At FAIR MODERATE PRICES

THE FOOD IS QUITE GOOD

AS IS THE AMBIANCE

AS FOR THE PRICES???
YOU'VE PROBABLY HEARD

QUITE FAR FROM MODERATE

VERY EXPENSIVE !!!

IS CARBONE CLASIC RED SAUCE?

The PRICES AREN'T

THAT'S BEEN ESTABLISHED

IF IT WILL BE A CLASSIC

TIME WILL TELL !!!

La TAVOLA IS NEW YORK ITALIAN RED SAUCE 

AND ALL

BAR at GINO'S

GAY TALESE on GINO'S,  THE NEW YORKER, May 31, 2010

BASTA !  

by Gay Talese

An Italian restaurant called Gino, which opened in 1945 on Lexington Avenue near Sixty-first Street, has been known primarily for its moderate prices, its tomato-red wallpaper printed with three hundred and fourteen leaping zebras, and its determinedly uncreative chefs, whose regular customers are so amiably resigned to the kitchen’s limited and unchanging cuisine that it has never been necessary for these customers to consult the menu.

All the items on the menu appear on a single plastic-covered page and were handwritten in ink sixty-five years ago by the restaurant’s founder, Gino Circiello, a dapper and debonair trendsetter in 1945 who thereafter ignored all trends. Even a year after his death at eighty-nine, in 2001, when the restaurant was described in the Zagat Survey as “frozen in the 40’s,” the regulars liked to boast that, at Gino’s, nothing was new: within the zebra-covered walls of this place everything remained the same, including the fact that a stripe was missing from the rumps of half the zebras—a mistake made by the original designer which Mr. Gino, a superstitious Italian of Neapolitan origin, chose not to correct, because to do so, he feared, might bring him bad luck.

So the restaurant’s décor as arranged at mid-twentieth century extended into the twenty-first: the same twenty-seven wooden tables and seventy-four chairs, the same small kitchen (ventilation provided by a half-opened skylight). And, week after week, the same daily specials: on Mondays it was osso buco, on Tuesdays it was nothing special, on Wednesdays it was lamb shank, on Thursdays it was veal Genovese, on Fridays it was fish soup, on Saturdays it was the same as Wednesdays (lamb shank), and on Sundays it was lasagna.

Gino’s most faithful customers, creatures of habit, feasted on consistency and the devoted attention of a single waiter, who (as one of nine waiters sharing the afternoon and evening shifts) oversaw each of his assigned tables for the duration of the meal. In the interest of controlling the overhead, Mr. Gino regarded busboys as an unnecessary expense, and he felt similarly about floral decorations. While the cost of the fresh flowers at La Grenouille is three thousand dollars a week, the plastic flowers at Gino’s—tucked into a half-dozen pearlescent plaster cornucopias that hang from the walls between the zebras—cost six hundred dollars a year.

The responsibility for purchasing these artificial flowers fell to one of the restaurant’s two current owners, a Neapolitan of sixty-nine named Michele Miele, who is also the chef. He buys the flowers at a Wal-Mart near his home in Sullivan County, and he washes them in the restaurant’s kitchen three times a year. Right now, the cornucopias are filled with spring flowers—plastic daisies, daffodils, tulips, lilies—and during the holidays he replaces them with chrysanthemums.

But there will be no chrysanthemums at Gino’s this Christmas and no more lamb-shank specials on Saturdays. Mr. Miele and his seventy-year-old partner, a fellow-Neapolitan named Salvatore Doria—who came to Gino’s as a waiter in 1974, after a decade at Barbetta, on West Forty-sixth Street—revealed last week that, owing to an eight-thousand-dollar-per-month increase that would drive the rent to more than thirty thousand dollars, plus the health-care costs sought by its employees’ union, the restaurant will close after Saturday night’s dinner on May 29th.

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The tenant who said he will replace Gino’s at 780 Lexington is a Beverly Hills bakery entrepreneur named Charles Nelson, who, with his wife, Candace, owns and operates Sprinkles Cupcakes shops not only in California but also in Texas and Arizona. Gino’s will vacate the premises in mid-June; Doria says that he plans to retire, and Miele says that he would like to open another restaurant nearby if he can find a backer—a big if in this economy, he concedes, given that he has already failed to attract new partners to confront the rising costs of operating Gino’s.

Meanwhile, Miele has abandoned his chores in the kitchen to his subordinates and has taken to sitting in the dining room exchanging greetings and condolences with regular customers, who, having got the word, are now coming in almost every day in anticipation of the time when there will not be a menu for them to ignore. In the crowd recently were the architect I. M. Pei and his wife, Eileen, who have been eating at Gino’s for sixty years. “Oh, I’m so sorry this is ending,” Miele said. “But we tried to listen to Mr. Gino, who told us, ‘Take care of the customer, don’t change anything, and Gino will never die.’ ” Doria added, “Yes, we used to say, ‘The world changes, but nothing changes at Gino.’ ” ♦