Locanda Verde

I've been a fan of Andrew Carmellini (see my blog Urban Italian) ever since I first went to Locanda Verde this past September.  The meal stopped me in my tracks and was a topic of conversation for days, likely to the boredom of my friends and family.  

I went back this past Tuesday evening while in NYC for a holiday dinner, and it was even better than I remembered!  I was with a group of fellow gluttons, so it was a shared experience of food comas and bliss.  

We started with the homemade focaccia sprinkled with rosemary and sea salt, the sheep's milk ricotta crostini, steak tartara with hazelnuts, truffles and crispy guanciale, lamb meatball sliders with caprino and cucumber (shown above) and a warm mushroom salad with duck prosciutto and poached egg.  My darling friend Hayley (and go-to gal for all things NYC food related) and I then split the mezze rigatoni with lamb bolognese, ricotta and mint and the fire-roasted garlic chicken for two, a house favorite, although at the rate we went, it could have been for one.

Chef Carmellini's second Manhattan restaurant, The Dutch, is scheduled to open shortly =)