Profile

Marco Canora, who ran the original kitchen at Craft and subsequently left to open his own restaurant, Hearth, has been one of Tom Colicchio's most ardent and successful proselytizers. At Hearth, Canora managed to put an Italian spin on Colicchio's rigorous Greenmarket doctrine. Now comes Insieme, which opened recently in a boxy little space in the Michelangelo Hotel above Times Square. Insieme is an Italian restaurant, too, but as the slightly tortured name indicates, it's less casual and bohemian than Hearth, and much more studied. The room is decorated in the self-consciously spare Craft style, with dining tables made from bleached French white oak and curtains of billowing silk shading the windows. These curtains have a pleasant cocooning effect, and as you study the menu, with its references to ramp puré e, pheasant eggs, and "pasture-fed baby beef," you don't feel like you're in Times Square anymore. You're back downtown, at some reconstituted, Mediterranean version of Craft 2.0. The restaurant's name ("together" in Italian) refers to the overly complex menu, which is really two documents intertwined in one. A "traditional" Italian menu is printed side-by-side with a more experimental, "contemporary" list. Once you've oriented yourself, it's a good idea to stick to the traditional side of things, especially in the early going. Among the contemporary items, the epicures at my table preferred the lamb carpaccio (sprinkled with righteously organic fava beans) to the bland calamari ripieni (wan ringlets of squid tossed with ramps and bits of orange) and the washugyu beef in brodo spiked with a little too much anise. But none of these compared with the traditional veal tartare (made with the aforementioned pasture-fed baby beef) or the excellent fritto misto alla Lucchese, containing sweetbreads rolled in flour, veal tongue, and a piece of calf's liver so tender it caused my colleague the Steak Loon to pause in rapturous silence and lift his eyes up toward the heavens. — Adam Platt

Brunch

Sat.—Sun., 8 a.m.—11a.m.

Ideal Meal

Fritto misto alla Lucchese, lasagne, lesso misto, chicken or lamb, gianduja bar.

Related Stories

New York Magazine Reviews

• Adam Platt's Full Review (6/4/07)

Best of New York Awards

• Best Gnudi (2009)
• Best Lasagne (2008)

Featured In

• Adam Platt's Where to Eat 2009 (1/5/09)
• Where to Eat 2008: Best New Restaurants of the Year (1/7/08)
• Where to Eat 2008 (1/7/08)
• Our Picks for Diet-Be-Damned Dishes (12/24/07)
• Restaurant Openings: Insieme, Tiffin Wallah, and P*ONG -- New York Magazine (4/23/07)

Recipes at Insieme

• Cannellini-and-Black-Kale Bruschetta (2007)