L'Artusi
Another Italian spot in the West Village.
Italian restaurants in the West Village hate to see me coming.
L’Artusi is a cute, candle-lit, Italian eatery that is also extremely popular located in the West Village. I was able to find a 5:15pm spot on a Wednesday evening in February (this is the kind of place where the good time slots—6-8pm—are taken up quickly, so the only times available on this particular day were 5pm and 5:15pm, which works for me!). I have been having so much Italian food lately, and I have been finding it increasingly more difficult to find where to place each spot on my internal list. L’Artusi would be somewhere lower on the list, if I’m honest, and let me tell you why.
We sat at the Chef’s Counter, which I actually liked, particularly because there were just two of us. I love a little bar seating moment.
Drinks: My friend and I both ordered a drink, the name of which is escaping me, and is not available online. It had mezcal and grapefruit, amongst other things, and it was truly the best thing I had this evening. It was the item that stood out to me the most, which is not the best sign when I am always looking forward to the food more than any drink.
Appetizers: We decided on the Burrata appetizer, while the crudo options looked enticing, which was served with roasted fig and pear, pine nuts, mint, and balsamic. I do not love balsamic and I find a lot of places overdo it, but L’Artusi did not overdo it. I thought the dish was well-balanced, the toast was nice and soft, but held up well under the burrata, and the figs and pears were delicious.
Entrées: I went with the Bucatini with pancetta, tomato, chiles, and pecorino while my friend ordered the Cavatelli with braised lamb ragu, mint, and ricotta. These were both very solid. The sauces were super flavorful, the pastas cooked well, and I loved their usage of cheese here. Bucatini is actually my favorite pasta shape, so I was happy that it was (a) available, (b) cooked well, and (c) soaked up the tomato sauce well. The pasta wasn’t as spicy as I was expecting, considering the chiles are advertised on the menu, which was a tad disappointing.
The pancetta was plentiful, which I really appreciated, and the tomato sauce was a good consistency and tasted fresh.
The Cavatelli was also very good: the the lamb ragu was super flavorful, the ricotta was an awesome touch (I love ricotta), and the mint blended well with the other flavors. These pastas were solid!! I just wasn’t blown away.
Desserts: We decided to go with two desserts which were the Olive Oil Cake with golden raisin marmellata, madeira, crème fraîche, and mousse, and the Warm Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Cookies. The olive oil cake was slightly underwhelming.
I have just had a lot better olive oil cakes before. This one was moist, but not as moist as I’ve had before. The powdered sugar was a tad over-the-top, I was missing the ice cream and wished that was on the plate as opposed to the mousse, and I don’t like raisins in general so they just didn’t make much sense to me here. I would go for the olive oil cake at Rezdôra before this one.
The cookies were also just underwhelming. I did not taste a lick of cinnamon. They were warm, which was a plus, but that was kind of the only thing that I liked about these. I have also had better chocolate chip cookies, but I finished mine, so that is saying something I guess.
The service here was fine, but not as good as I have experienced lately in my other restaurant excavations. They were nice though! I just generally wasn’t as blown away here as I have been elsewhere. L’Artusi is probably not the place I would go back to in the West Village for Italian if I had a choice, but their food was solid and the space was very nice. Can’t go wrong with a candle-lit dining space.