After just barely missing Sunday’s International Pickle Festival on the lower east side, Carrie and I decided to salvage the day and take our friend Mary-Kate's recommendation to try out the wine bar and Italian small-plates restaurant 'inoteca. We put our name down and walked down the block to wait out our 20 minutes at Economy Candy.
On a brief, but worthwhile tangent, Economy Candy if you’ve never been, inspires wonder in children and adults alike with candy from every generation piled all the way to the ceilings. If there’s something your sweet tooth has craved but you couldn’t find anywhere else, I guarantee you would find it here.
Back to the restaurant… we were seated at a small table by the windows, its all windows, and light shines through in droves. Confronted with the menu which is only written in Italian, we were quite confused, however our waiter was extremely helpful and literally walked us through the entire menu and gave us some fantastic recommendations.
The menu is broken up into insalata and antipasta, pane (breads) subdivided into tramezzini (small finger sandwiches), Panini (grilled flat sandwiches), bruschette (toast with toppings), Piatti (more traditional entrees), Fritto (fried),Affettati (cured meats), and Formaggi (cheeses). The wine-by-the-glass list is extensive and we were pointed to a delicious red, the '04 Valpolicella Ca Fiui, Corte Sant Alda.
We started with olives and a selection of cheeses (one goat, one pecorino, and one blue) which came with slices of bread and then tried three brochette, noci (almost like peanut butter, but with walnuts), ricotta fresca, and fagiolo del giorno (white bean puree), all were delicious and small details like the tomato sauce on the ricotta and shredded mint in the white beans enhanced their flavors. For our main dishes, we ordered the Lasagnette Di Melanzane (eggplant lasagna) and Pollo Alla Cacciatora (crispy chicken with peppers and pesto potatoes). The chicken dish was one of the best preparations of chicken I have ever had. It was perfectly crisped on the outside, moist on the inside and the peppers added some sweetness. Our cold leftovers were still delicious the next day.
I will conclude by saying I would highly recommend ‘inoteca for a leisurely meal. Apparently the restaurant has not gone unnoticed and there is often a long wait (we went at an off hour), but they do take reservations for parties of 6 or more and there is also a private dining room downstairs that offers less hustle bustle, but we did not find it on our visit.
some further resources:
Italian to English Menu Translator
'inoteca
98 Rivington St. (and Ludlow)
212-614-0473
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