Just Eat It: Torrisi

Last week, I took Naomi and some friends out to Torrisi Italian Specialties, an intimate, casual restaurant that without a doubt has become my favorite neighborhood eatery. Applying learned haute cuisine techniques, chefs/owners Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi—formerly at the esteemed Del Posto and Café Boulud—reinvent our notions of informal Italian-American fare to create some of the most delicious and supremely elegant food that I've had the pleasure of eating.

The menu changes every night, but involves: family-style antipasti, a pasta plate, a choice of two entrées, and a medley of traditional Italian-American desserts (all created with a fun, inventive twist, of course). Dinner costs $60 per person, sans beverages, and the typical menu is a four-course prix fixe—unless you opt for the $125 twenty-course menu, an ambitious meal that is served only twice in an evening and books up quickly. Not too unreasonable for one of the best meals you'll ever have.

Our menu for the evening was as follows, in this order:

Antipasti
Warm mozzarella, daVero and milk thistle cream
Roasted fennel, grapefruit, bitters
Raw scallop, pepperoncini
Cotechino, lentils, pear mostarda

Pasta
Spaghetti, clams casino

Main
John Dory giardinia cauliflower, almond
Island duck, mulberry mustard, sprouts

Palate Cleanser
Lemon Italian ice

Pastry
Butternut squash custard
Pizelle cannoli, salvatore filling
Rainbow cookies
Celery cake, grape jelly, peanuts
Chocolate-mint truffle

*Special thanks to Sue of Momofuku for introducing me to Torrisi

TORRISI

250 Mulberry Street

New York, NY 10012

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