Carlina Restaurant & Bar

Hearty, Stuffed Pastas and More Cozy Alpine Fare at this West Village Newcomer | Eater NY

"One of the West Village’s priciest restaurants — not counting sushi bars — quietly opened this past May in the small storefront that once housed Einat Admony’s short-lived Kish-Kash. Osteria Carlina is a true regional restaurant focused on the food of Turin and the Piemonte, run by Carlo Rolle, Moreno Cerutti, and Davide Poggi Ferrari, with an all-Italian wine list and a separate truffle menu that runs as high as $125. On a late-summer evening I contemplated a $47 veal osso buco towering like a ruined chateau, its rosemary-sprig pennant poking skyward and a thick pond of cheesy risotto beside it — damn, it was good. The menu follows the classic antipasti, primi, secondi progression: vitello tonnato ($19) arrives with a silky, airy sauce made from tinned tuna poured over curls of room-temperature roast veal and hulking caperberries; canederli ($17) are squishy spinach dumplings with breadcrumbs and shredded speck, showered with butter and parmesan; a seafood salad of shrimp and squid has a thin, little-flavored dressing (an early visit added fresh peaches, which made me wish for a fruit salad rather than a seafood-forward dish). All pastas are freshly made and change seasonally — a late-summer flower-shaped beet ravioli filled with soft cheese was a highlight — and my current favorite is a $25 duck ragu (Venetian-style, no tomato) served on supple tagliatelle. Secondi tend to be massive and shareable: a plate-sized Milanese veal cutlet, a whole hazelnut-crusted branzino, and a beef cheek braised in Barolo that I regret not trying. Wine prices are surprisingly reasonable (I washed my veal shank down with an $18 glass of Barolo from Cascina Boschetti), desserts are mostly forgettable though the apple strudel is sweet and flaky and the bonet ($11) — a Piemontese chocolate flan topped with a crumbly almond macaroon — is a better choice, and if you refuse dessert the hosts will hand you a complimentary cookie plate to finish your Barolo." - Robert Sietsema