• Torrisi Italian Specialties

  250 Mulberry St., nr. Prince St.; 212-965-0955

  Thanks to the success of effete little tasting ateliers like Brooklyn Fare and Momofuku Ko, the city is awash these days in pricey, tiresomely long omakase-style menus served by self-important chefs in cramped little rooms. At Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone’s new, smartly reimagined flagship restaurant, however, the small exposed-brick room exudes a sense of cozy bonhomie, and the elaborate new tasting menu is the opposite of tiresome. The young chefs have wisely left their $60 home-style menu intact, but for two seatings every evening, the kitchen serves a new $125, twenty-course, reservations-only “chef’s tasting menu,” the highlights of which—Delmonico-steak tartare, Chinese “cashew” chicken, an opulent Bolognese made with dry-aged beef—encompass the entire gastronomic history of New York City in twenty or so carefully considered bites.

From the 2012 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine