"Bad Roman, the latest restaurant from the Quality Branded group, is three flights up the Shops at Columbus Circle, above the Whole Foods and past the Paper Source, in an upscale Manhattan mall. It remains impossible to get into. And it might be the restaurant that most exemplifies the current maximalism trend popping up in the restaurant world, a marked penchant for the loud and campy and irreverent. Luke Fortney describes Bad Roman as “a Buca di Beppo version of a fern bar meets White Lotus-level decadence.” Helen Rosner calls the space “a series of Instagram opportunities.” It’s full of orange booths endcapped with statues of greyhounds, a sculpture of a lion draped in neon, glass tiles everywhere, and a whole-ass fountain near the bathroom, which have been endlessly captured on TikToks frantically asking, “Is Bad Roman worth the hype?” It feels like the definition of More. The menu is just as aggressively whimsical, at least on paper, with roasted garlic babka, caviar gnocchi, and an entire 2-pound lobster on top of Calabrian chile pasta. But nothing has quite captured the public, or my imagination, like the ’roni cups and ranch, a dish that consists of a brood of charred pepperoni served with ranch dipping sauce. That’s it." - Jaya Saxena
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