Saturday, June 19, 2010

Two Years for Scarpetta (food)

A while back Scarpetta was celebrating its second birthday with a special 4 course menu, just as they had done for their first birthday. This is one of the best dining deals in NYC so if they do it again next year (around early-mid May) don't miss out. It's 4 courses PLUS wine pairing for $50+t/t.

The lovely bread basket with that delicious stromboli.

For the first course both my friend SM and I chose the creamy polenta with mushroom fricasee. I still haven't had polenta this creamy anywhere else and that fricasee has a terrific truffle smell that hits you very quickly.

For our second course we both had the spaghetti with tomato and basil. I can't say enough about this pasta. One of my all-time favorites. This portion is smaller than the full priced portion, but not by much.

For my main I had the black cod entree. Good fish, decently crispy skin.

My friend had the halibut and seemed to like it.

I don't remember what either of the desserts were.

The wine pairings were nice and the sommelier was quite enthusiastic about the selections.

I fully expect to be back next year as this is just a value that's too hard to pass up.

4 comments :

Unknown said...

The sommelier is enthusiastic about anything in their cellar. Based on the Piedmont vintage, I chose a mid priced 1996 Barolo to go with the lamb. This surely did not need more selling from them. It went surprisingly well with the charred black cod skin. For dessert, they pushed a 2005 Acilinobili, which was rough and a bit unbalanced. After sending it back, we settled on a 2003 that was much more agreeable.

Jonathan Weinstein said...

Allegra and I needed a place to go tomorrow pre-ballet and I started scrolling through your blog...we are going to give Scarpetta a try. How do you think it compares to Lupa?

The Pretender said...

Scarpetta is a little less casual and a little more expensive, but I think the food is more refined than at Lupa. Be sure to get the polenta, the tomato and basil spaghetti, and I would generally focus more on the pastas than the mains. Let me know how you two like it.

Jonathan Weinstein said...

We liked it...we split a pasta and a main dish; I can't remember details now except it was good. Only complaint was the too-trendy decor (she cares about that much more than I do, of course.)