Even though we’ve been doing a lot of traveling this summer, we’ve also made time to explore our own city – including some cool restaurants that are new to us.  Today we’re going to feature two spots that we visited recently and enjoyed and want to highlight.  Both are in Manhattan, so they’re easy to get to, and they both serve up some delicious Italian food – in fact, we ended up ordering similar appetizers at each restaurant.  So check out our two latest New York restaurant recommendations, but just be warned that we have one image of meat in this post.

First, over in Chelsea, we visited Bottino, which specializes in Tuscan dishes and was named as one of the ten best restaurants in Manhattan by USA Today.  We started our meal there by sharing an order of the fried artichokes, which are topped with mint and some lightly spicy chili flakes.

Then we split an order of the cacio e pepe, made with bavette pasta …

… and a special for that day:  stinging nettle agnolotti stuffed with lemon ricotta.

On the Upper West Side we also got to try Osteria Accademia, which opened last year and has already earned praise from Forbes.  We clearly are really into artichokes this summer because we also decided to start here with their fried artichoke hearts.

Then Miriam had this mafalde pasta made with a mint and pistachio pesto, topped with Parmesan and some greens.

And Cyril tried the tabliolini neri, which is a squid ink pasta in lobster sauce served with shrimp and eggplant.

We really enjoyed the food we got at both of these spots – and it seems that we’re on an artichoke kick.  At Bottino we got an excellent version of a classic plus a really tasty and unique special made with stinging nettles, which we’d never tried before.  And at Osteria Accademia we got an interesting take on pesto plus a seafood-packed pasta dish.  We’ve written about tons of other Italian food in New York, and the options for this cuisine are truly endless, but consider these places to be two more entries in our ever-expanding list of good places to eat in the city.

Where We Ate: Isabelle’s Osteria & Trattoria Dell’Arte

This spring we’ve gotten the chance to try so many cool restaurants around New York, and we’re always excited to share places we like.  That’s what we’re going to do today – we want to highlight two spots in Manhattan that we recently enjoyed.  They both serve up Italian food, and they’re both pretty accessible in the city so you can easily get to them.  And best of all, we were able to eat entirely vegetarian meals at both places, so if you’re intrigued, read on to see some excellent picks.

The first place we went was Isabelle’s Osteria, on 20th Street just north of Union Square.  It’s a fairly new restaurant, and the menu has a lot of creative dishes on the menu.  We started out by sharing a few things, including their cauliflower, served with shishito peppers and lemon and a Calabrian pepper aioli on the side.

And also this grain salad, made with greens, quinoa, farro, squash, feta, and pumpkin seeds.

Plus their crispy rosemary and garlic potatoes.

Then we tried two entrees:  a slice of the mushroom lasagna, with a taleggio and bechamel sauce …

… and one of their specials for the day, which was this cube of eggplant parm.

Now if you head a little farther north, to 57th Street, you’ll see Trattoria Dell’Arte sitting just above Times Square.  It’s an establishment in the area and a pretty cavernous place, since it serves people coming from Broadway shows as well as nearby Carnegie Hall.  We were just looking for a good place in Midtown and decided to stop in for some classic dishes like this margherita pizza, which is made in a thin and crispy bar pie-style topped with both mozzarella and burrata.

Then we shared the rigatoni vodka …

… and the homemade ravioli, stuffed with more burrata and served in a pomodoro sauce.

These were both some good places to sample, and we think we did a good job of scouting out some great Italian food in New York.  Isabelle’s Osteria is a fun new place where we got to try some good appetizers and really creative entrees, and Trattoria Dell’Arte gave us the chance to go to a mainstay of Midtown Manhattan, where we got some classic comfort food.  We’d recommend Trattoria Dell’Arte as a good place if you’re looking for something near Times Square, while Isabelle’s Osteria is a place to go for fun, slightly less traditional Italian food.  That’s what we’re sharing for now, but we’ve still got a lot of recommendations so check back soon!

Where We Ate: Gazab & Spicy Moon

We’re back with more restaurant recommendations, because there’s just so many cool places to visit in New York!  Today we’re focusing on two restaurants that are just half a mile from each other, in the area where the East Village meets the Lower East Side.  They represent two different cuisines, and we enjoyed being able to eat so many interesting things in just a small radius.  So here’s where we went and what we would recommend getting at each spot – but just be aware that we do have one image of meat here.

First up was Gazab, a small space serving up Indian food dishes that are more involved than what you might typically see on takeout menus.  We decided to begin our meal there with these pani puri:  some dough pockets filled with a mixture of potatoes, crispy chickpeas, and broth.

We also shared an order of the bok choy chaat, which has fried pieces of bok choy served with pomegranate and a chutney made with dates, mint, avocado, and tamarind, then topped with a sweet and sour yogurt and some chickpea flour crispies.

Then Miriam decided to try the mushroom paneer biryani, because it looked very, very cool baked into its own dish:

And Cyril had the rampuri taar gosht, made with goat, onions, and nuts in a yogurt sauce.

Now just a little bit north of Gazab is one location of Spicy Moon, an all-vegan Szechuan restaurant that also has a second spot in the West Village.  We were excited for the chance to try meatless versions of all different kinds of Szechaun foods, so we started with some vegetable wontons in chili oil.

And also this crispy eggplant.

Then we shared an order of the dan dan noodles …

… as well as these dry pepper-style potatoes (you can also get this dish with tofu, eggplant, or just vegetables).

We thought both these places were pretty cool – at Gazab we dug into some Indian dishes we’d never really tried before or seen in such an interesting presentation.  Meanwhile, at Spicy Moon we got to eat entirely vegan, and we also tried some things that we hadn’t had a chance to sample before because they’re usually made with meat.  These two spots are both on the cozy side, so it’s best to make a reservation if you want to snag a table.  They’re both worth checking out, and in the coming weeks we’ll share even more of the food we got to try and loved!

Where We Ate: Bar Pasquale & Jupiter

All throughout the winter, and now into the spring, we’ve been trying out a bunch of interesting restaurants around New York, so today we wanted to share two of our latest recommendations.  Here we’re featuring two places that have opened in the past year, and that both offer up menus of Italian food.  Not only that – we were also able to eat entirely vegetarian at both spots, so it was really nice to be able to go to two different restaurants and get a good variety of meat-free food.  So here’s where we went and what we enjoyed!

First, we were able to snag a spot at Bar Pasquale, the sister restaurant to the very popular Pasquale Jones.  Bar Pasquale, in Nolita, focuses specifically on pastas, pizzas and Sicilian cuisine, and since we’re a fan of all those things we thought it was the perfect place to try.  We started our meal with the cavolini di buxelles – this salad of shredded brussel sprouts and fennel, tossed with almonds.

We also tried a pizza that was a seasonal special:  the squash agrodolce pie, topped with smoked butternut squash, pepitas, arugula, and pearl onions.

For pastas, Miriam had their version of rigatoni alla vodka, which they make with grappa and a few spicy chiles.

And Cyril got theses culurgiones, which are stuffed with a smoked potato filing and come in a porcini mushroom and basil sauce.

Farther north in Mahattan is Jupiter, which sits in the lower level of Rockefeller Center, across from the skating rink.  Jupiter also has a great selection of pastas, but before we got to that part of our meal we decided to try one of their salads salad – in particular, the insalata di stagione, made with radicchio, arugula, asparagus, lentils, fennel, and Castelrosso cheese.

Then Miriam tried these ricotta and spinach tortellini, in a butter and parmesan sauce.

And Cyril had the pizzoccheri, which is a dish of buckwheat noodles, cabbage, potatoes, and Fontina cheese, all baked together.

Both of these new places were interesting spots to visit:  Bar Pasquale is pretty near Little Italy, so it’s nice to have a more modern and less touristy restaurant where you can get Italian food in the area.  And Jupiter is a great hidden gem (literally – it’s underground) in Midtown, where as a bonus you can watch ice skaters twirling by in winter.  We’ve got a ton of more recommendations coming up in the next few weeks, in both New York and elsewhere, so be sure to check back here soon!

Where We Ate: The Best Pizzas in Queens

One of our passions is pizza, and we’re very lucky to live in an area that has such a wealth of good options.  We subscribe to the Pizza Belt theory, which states any given pizzeria within New York City and its surrounding areas is more likely than not to produce a decent pizza.  But we’re not just looking for good – we want to know what’s best in our home city.  And so, to that end, we recently spent a Sunday afternoon going all around Queens scouting out the best pizzas in the borough.  Our quest took us to quite a variety of different places, with each stop easily accessible from the subway, and we thoroughly enjoyed all our slices and pies.  Best of all, we were able to eat entirely vegetarian as we made our way around Queens.  So here our are picks!

Our first stop was in Forest Hills, just a few blocks from the E and F trains.  Nick’s is a small storefront with table service or takeout that’s been cooking up pizzas for 30 years.  We decided there we would try this large pie with basil and hot cherry peppers.

From there we headed over to Jamaica, to a very unassuming spot a few blocks from the end of the E, J and Z trains.  Margherita Pizza is a tiny, cash only space that serves up mostly slices – and it’s wildly popular among both pizza connoisseurs and neighborhood locals.  They have only a few toppings available, so we decided to keep it simple and get cheese slices, which were absolutely delicious.

We next ventured to north, to an area on the border between Flushing and College Point.  Amore Pizzeria is about a half-mile walk from the last stop on the 7 train, through an area filled with warehouses.  We were pretty unsure if we were going in the right direction until we hit a strip mall and Amore was occupying one of the storefronts.  It was pretty surprising to come upon an old school slice joint in that area, but there were a ton of people coming in and out and the place looked legit.  We got cheese slices there as well, and we really enjoyed them too.

And for our final destination, we headed to Milkflower in Astoria, not far from the N and W trains.  This spot is a restaurant with a full menu, offering pastas and entrees and such, but in keeping with our day’s theme we stuck with just pizza.  We decided to keep on with simplicity in our pizza tastes for the day and got the Queen, made with fresh mozzarella, parmesan, and basil on tomato sauce.

It was a day well spent, in our opinion:  we got to travel all around Queens to go to quite a wide array of pizza places.  We visited two humble places serving up delicious slices, plus one family-owned place for pies, plus a new and creative spot – and we got to make our way through four different neighborhoods.  Cyril’s favorite pizza was Nick’s, while Miriam favored Margherita Pizza.  We also both agreed that Amore Pizza was the most unexpected, because we didn’t quite expect to find pizza in a strip mall, and in an area that’s much more well known for Asian food.  We’re glad we got to explore and highlight some great places, and we’ve got one more adventure up our sleeves to share soon.