Restaurant review: Dell'anima

Last Sunday night, in the midst of a quiet and cool Labor Day weekend here in NYC, my sister, Judd and I decided to try someplace new. Both my sister and I keep lists of restaurants that we'd like to try - among the many sets of lists we keep - and we both had independently heard of and added Dell'anima to our lists.

Dell'anima is a small and bustling Italian restaurant in the West Village. It has an open kitchen where they hand make all of their own pasta. Figuring that the quiet tone of the long holiday weekend would make it easy to get a table, we arrived at 8:15pm. And proceeded to wait over an hour for one of the few tables they keep for patient walk-ins like us. Go figure. But we eventually found some free seats at the bar and passed the time sampling a few glasses of their mostly-Italian wine list.

Once seated, we started by sharing grilled bread with five different spreads: broccoli rabe pesto, mashed avocado, scrambled eggs with bottarga (ICK!), mashed octopus (double ICK!), and lily confit (I can't really remember what that tasted like - see my earlier reference to the hour spent waiting at their bar for our table). This had been a gift from our waiter for ignoring our requests for something to snack on while we waited at the bar. Which was good because I wasn't too impressed.

Next, I had an arugula salad with lemon and shaved parmigiano reggiano. It tasted just like it sounds, which is to say, quite boring. But I was trying to recover from my week of fried seafood. My sister, whose love of salad is unmatched, ordered an heirloom tomato salad with shaved fennel, beans, shallots and pesto. It was tasty, but Judd out ordered both of us with his "tajarin" (it was like fettuccine) alla carbonara. It was excellent.

For my entree, I had risotto "alla pilotta" flavored with homemade sausage, salumi, and pecorino cheese. And that was as delicious as it sounds. My sister played it safe but smart with an excellent tagliatelle bolognese. And Judd got chicken "alla diavolo" which was incredibly spicy. Too spicy, in fact, for my taste. We shared a very small plum tart with vanilla gelato for dessert. It was one of the only two desserts they offered. And it was very nice.

The service at Dell'anima was underwhelming. I realize the restaurant was busy, but it was also very small and they seemed to have enough staff to have better managed the diners. There were long breaks in between our courses, which, I must admit, were made more tolerable by the four glasses of Vermentino I enjoyed over the course of the evening. They also only have one bathroom!? Nothing kills a pleasant wine buzz faster than a long wait in a hot hallway outside the kitchen to use the bathroom.

In sum, I liked the food enough to give Dell'anima another try. But I'll be sure to have a reservation when I do. And maybe go on a weeknight.

**

Details:

Dell'anima

38 Eighth Avenue

New York, New York

(212) 366-6633

dinner for three and a lot of wine for two: ~$180.