Otto

My friends Jess, Sarah, and Katie and I went to Otto on the night before the Santa Margherita event. Otto is one of Mario Batali’s restaurants, but it’s actually pretty casual and quite cheap (especially for New York). It’s basically part wine bar and part pizzeria.

The menu is designed for sharing, comprising of a variety of antipasti, pizzas, and pasta. Everything we had was wonderful and it was great being able to try so many different things. The wine list is enormous, but we ended up settling on individual glasses of wine. We were surprised to discover that each glass of wine is actually a small carafe and is a really good deal at $9-10 a glass!

We started with the Pea and Pancetta Bruschetta, which was topped with some fresh mint.


We then got three kinds of Antipasti:
Summer Corn and Fregola
Mussels, Peperonata, Mint
Squash and Pecorino


Our pasta came next. We ordered the Rigatoni con Sausage & Escarole.


We tried two of their pizzas: Funghi & Taleggio and Pane Frattau (tomato, pecorino, egg).



We couldn’t resist ordering a couple of desserts to round off our meal. I had read great things about the olive oil gelato so I knew we’d have to try that. The dessert was called Olive Oil Coppetta and had the olive oil gelato, lime curd, pineapple rosemary conserva, passionfruit caramel, and cashew cacao brittle. We also got the Black and White, which was layered with milk chocolate chip gelato, hazelnut croccante, crème fraiche gelato, chocolate sauce, and caramel crema. Both of the desserts were very different, but equally delicious!


Overall, our meal was really enjoyable and the atmosphere was great for catching up with friends.