Cafe Spaghetti
Italian restaurant · Columbia Street Waterfront
126 Union St, Brooklyn, NY 11231
Highlights
Cozy Italian eatery with homemade pastas, cocktails, and a large patio.
Cozy Italian eatery with homemade pastas, cocktails, and a large patio.
"Of all the things one can get at an Italian restaurant, we don’t know if we’ve ever been dying to order the spaghetti pomodoro. But if there’s anywhere to eat your rent-week favorite in public, it’s Cafe Spaghetti, where a simple tomato sauce on handmade pasta is surprisingly rich and buttery. This restaurant also has one of the best backyards in Brooklyn—complete with a decorative baby blue Vespa and limoncello-colored umbrellas—where you can sit with a spritz and pretend you’re in some prestigious food documentary about discovering regional Italian cuisine." - neha talreja, bryan kim, willa moore, will hartman
"Seated under an orange-and-white striped umbrella next to a blue Vespa in the restaurant’s backyard, the diner describes a perfect-summer vibe and a perfectly cooked short rigatoni in a creamy, slightly sweet corn ragu ($24) that “tasted like the best summer has to offer every bite.” A subsequent stroll through the Prospect Park farmers market, where corn, cherry tomatoes, and scallions “burst literally and aromatically out of every stall,” reinforced the dish as a quintessential summer pasta. — Terri Ciccone, deputy director of audience development" - Nadia Chaudhury
"Held up as one of the modern nods to traditional red‑sauce joints, the owner/chef of this contemporary restaurant — Sal Lamboglia — stepped in to take over a beloved old focacceria after its abrupt closure, an example of how new‑style spots are both preserving and reworking neighborhood culinary legacies." - Joshua David Stein
"Cafe Spaghetti is a newer Italian restaurant in a neighborhood full of old-school standbys. The restaurant is known for its pasta, but there are other ways to eat here, with dishes like meatballs, baked clams, eggplant Parmesan, and chicken Milanese. Some dishes diverge from staples to reflect the modern age: “breakfast spaghetti” with bacon, and at brunch, ricotta pancakes with orange-blossom honey. Don’t miss the backyard garden." - Robert Sietsema
"Down by the old container port in what is now delicately called the Columbia Waterfront District, Cafe Spaghetti appeared this past summer with great fanfare. The menu offered Italian-American dishes only slightly updated, with plenty of pastas and a wine list that leans natural. More important is the giant fenced backyard with its shaded tables and an ornamental scooter that kids love to climb on. Good for all ages." - Melissa McCart
