"My brother came to the city recently and I wanted to take him out for a nice meal somewhere. He 's not quite as adventurous an eater as I am but I 've yet to meet a person who dislikes Italian food, so Italian it was. I Googled something to the effect of best Italian Manhattan and this place was spoken highly of, had good prices, and reservations were available. We arrived at 7pm on the dot (our reservation) and were seated immediately. The restaurant was already fairly full, and the tables were quite close to each other. The decor of the restaurant was charming in the classic NYC restaurant with many famous patrons sort of way, with pictures of various famous people on the wall. One item that caught my eye was an old menu (not much has changed) on the second floor. We began with pre-dinner drinks. I chose a negroni and my brother had a Peroni. The Peroni was fine (pretty hard to screw up), and the negroni was just like I remembered (forgot how sweet they are). Bread arrived around the same time, and was good. Once we finished with drinks, we got a carafe of the house red to split, which at $36 felt like a fairly good value (we had a slight snafu ordering the wine, as we flagged down the wrong server to order, but this was quickly, if not particularly elegantly, handled). I ordered a Caesar salad, while my brother did not. Fantastic Caesar salad as they go. There was anchovy and caper in the salad, which is always a great sign, and the salad was about as good as a Caesar salad could be. The only other thing they could have done was tableside prep, but that just wouldn 't work in the space. Unfortunately, the Caesar salad is probably my best memory of the food. Out came the entrees. I opted for spaghetti and meatballs, while my brother went with the rigatoni bolognese. Shortly after service, one of the waiters came by with cheese, which was certainly welcome. Neither of our meals were particularly remarkable, though they certainly weren 't bad. We finished our meals, finished our wine, and split the check (pleasantly, they figured splitting the bill evenly out on their own after we put down two credit cards). Dessert was on offer, but neither of us were particularly interested. Perhaps I had expected too much out of the place, but the meal simply wasn 't as memorable as it feels like it should have been. The restaurant has all the bones of a great, classic red-sauce Italian-American restaurant, but the food just isn 't quite there. Maybe I should have ordered differently, but the meatballs simply weren 't as good as my own meatballs (which are becoming a Christmas Eve tradition in my family), which feels inexcusable for a place that bills itself as one of New York City 's top Italian restaurants. Would I go back? Sure, if I was invited. But would I choose this place again? I might spend some more time looking around for Italian places."
Mozzarella In Carozza
