Restaurant review: Maialino

One day in late January, I got an e-mail from my friend Alex. She had read about Maialino, Danny Meyer's newest restaurant in the Gramercy Park Hotel, and the roast suckling pig they serve family style. She and her husband Mike -- who also spent their honeymoon eating their way through Italy -- decided we should all go to Maialino together to get some. And we finally did just that on Wednesday night.

Danny Meyer, one of New York City's most prominent restauranteurs, is probably best known for turning Union Square and Madison Square into dining destinations. He opened Union Square Cafe in 1985, followed by Gramercy Tavern in 1994, and later Tabla, Eleven Madison Park, Blue Smoke, the Shake Shack (which I still haven't tried), the Modern, and now Maialino. I have met him, and by met I mean shaken his hand, a few times, as he has walked around his restaurants welcoming diners, and he was at Maialino again on Wednesday. I barely resisted the urge to beg him for a job on the spot.

Maialino means little pig in Italian. And pig is featured prominently on Maialino's Roman-inspired menu. In addition to the aforementioned roast suckling pig for a crowd, they offer a selection of cured meats, pork-studded pastas, and even a pig's foot entree, for foot fanciers.

Maialino is a very pretty restaurant. It has a large comfortable bar area and huge windows overlooking picturesque Gramercy Park. We were seated at a cozy booth close to the bread, salumi, and dessert stations, pictured at the top of this posting (no, my junky camera did not take that picture - I found it on New York Magazine's website). And close to Mayor Bloomberg, who was sitting a few tables away. The service was fairly slow on Wednesday night, and we were offered a complimentary dish of delicious fried baby artichokes with an anchovy-bread sauce while we waited for our pastas. The artichokes were delightfully crispy without being greasy and I even liked sauce, despite its inclusion of anchovy.

Our waitress explained that the roast pig, which is a considered a special and is not actually listed on the menu, serves anywhere from 2-4 people, so we decided to share four pasta dishes to start: spaghetti carbonara (egg, black pepper and guanciale), bucatini all'Amatriciana (spicy tomato and guanciale), lasagna al forno (spinach pasta and lamb ragu), and raviolo al uovo (egg yolk, ricotta, brown butter). Wowza times four. They were all delicious, but as I mentioned in a previous post, that raviolo is particularly noteworthy.

I wasn't really hungry after the artichokes and pasta course, but when our large pig platter arrived -- a quarter of a roasted suckling pig served atop of pile of roasted potatoes -- I perked back up. The "maialino" is slow-roasted for six hours and dusted with salt, pepper, cracked fennel and rosemary. The pig meat (ribs, loin, and shoulder) was incredibly tender and flavorful. But the real highlight for me was the crispy pig skin! It was insanely delicious. To balance the richness of the roast pork, we also shared two vegetable dishes: broccoli rabe with chili and garlic and barely-sauteed sugar snap peas.

For dessert we shared a slice of orangey olive oil cake with a vanilla whipped cream - a perfect end to a near-perfect dinner.

The service was fairly slow and spotty and I don't like dealing with the 30-day wait between wanting to eat at Maialino and getting a reservation, but this little piggy still can't wait to go back!

***

2 Lexington Avenue

New York, New York

(212) 777-2410 - you'll need to call 4 weeks ahead

Dinner for four: $350 (the roast pig for four is $72 but all of the pastas are under $20)