Dinner at Via Carota is always worth the wait. To sip a cold Negroni in the warm brass, wood and marble interior, or under the string lights out on the sidewalk offers deep contentment – and the West Village’s finest people watching.
Unfurl the Tuscan-inspired menu from the back of the reclaimed chapel chair and indulge in happy debate while chewing on plump Castelvetrano olives: Obviously, we want to start with the grilled artichokes and aioli, and the chicken liver crostini. Do we also need the deep-fried olives, coated in pork and breadcrumbs like briny Scotch Eggs? Yes, we do.
Owned by Jody Williams, the chef and founder of Buvette – so quintessentially French that it has an outpost in Paris, and Rita Sodi, the chef and founder of I Sodi – a slim slip of pasta perfection, just down the street, Via Carota is named after Sodi’s family villa, where the couple spent numerous happy summers “picking lemons from the garden and cooking on a wood stove,” as Williams recalled when the restaurant opened in 2014.
As the years have gone by, the kitchen has only grown in confidence; sticking to a core menu of favourites and an ever-changing seasonal selection of verdure and pastas. Expect a dinner of simple and heartfelt pleasures – a salad, perfectly salted, dressed and arranged leaf by leaf in a tower of vivid green, a fat curl of octopus in a pool of pesto, creamy-comforting tonnarelli cacio pepe, hand-chopped steak svizzerina, caramelized-crisp without, meltingly soft within.
It’s a menu that’s garnered Williams and Sodi a loyal and dedicated following, a James Beard Award and multiple accolades from publications like the New Yorker and the Times. The result? Via Carota is exactly as busy as it deserves to be – i.e. very. With most tables assigned to walk-in customers, the good news is, if you put your name on the list at the door, you’ll get in eventually – it might just take a while.
The solution? Bar Pisellino, which the couple opened across the road in 2019, and, with the addition of extra pandemic-sanctioned outdoor seating, has forged its own identity as far more than a Via Carota waiting room – a bustling all-day slice of Italian cafe culture. With its glamorous marble bar, topped with silver punchbowls filled with iced bottles of prosecco, it’s the ideal place to while away an hour with an amaro or cocktail. From early morning espresso to lunchtime panini, mid-afternoon cream-filled bomboloni and evening bar snacks, every detail is pitch-perfect.
A perfect night:
• Get to Grove street early and put your name on the list at Via Carota.
• Relax with a drink at Bar Pisellino, then head back over the street when your table comes up for dinner.
• End the evening at local favourite Big Gay Ice Cream for a soft-serve if you still have room for something sweet – the Salty Pimp (caramel injected, salted and chocolate topped) comes highly recommended.
Reviewed by Katherine Knowles in September 2021
