Noodle Noshing Nirvana

DATE: July 21st, 2015

LOCATION: Scarpetta

355 W 14th Street, New York, NY 10014

I originally didn't consider writing about my dining experience at Scarpetta, not because it wasn't good, but because it was SO good, it almost doesn't even need to be mentioned.  Scarpetta is an Italian restaurant in the meat-packing district and has received many accolades.  If you've been to or even just heard of Scarpetta, then you know what dish I HAD to order, especially being my first time there.  I ordered the Spaghetti, Tomato & Basil.  I was wondering how could such a simple, plain sounding dish be raved and reviewed as much as it has been?  Well, after one bite, I can taste why.  The texture of the spaghetti is very smooth and buttery.  The tomato is saucy and sticks with every forkful of pasta.  This pasta dish is very simplistic but flavorful!

Spaghetti, Tomato & Basil

These are not just cooks in Scarpetta's kitchen, these are fine dining chefs that carefully craft each dishes so you can appreciate the tastes and ingredients that went into everything.  I was so glad I finally got to cross this restaurant off my bucket list, all thanks to a friend that treated me out to dinner :)  We started off with the raw yellow tail as our appetizer.  Clean, fresh and delicious.  Can't say more much more about that other than I was pleasantly surprised.  

Raw Yellowtail

But the best bites we had to nosh on before our pastas & main entrees arrived were actually their AHHHH-MAZING bread basket!  I don't have a photo of this or the spreads, because my hands were too busy picking away at this basket every other minute and trying out their different dips to have remembered to take a photo of this yummy goodness.  The bread that stood out to me was the stromboli, something I've never seen before in a bread basket.  A stromboli is a bread turnover filled with cheese and salami.  The other breads were just as warm, fluffy and soft.  Perfect to break apart and dip into any one of the 3 spread selections: butter and mascarpone, caponata or lemony olive oil.  I couldn't decide which of these were my favorite, it may have been a toss-up between the butter mascarpone or the caponata (an eggplant tomato spread that has a ton of other ingredients).  Usually it's not good to fill up on a bread basket before a dinner, but this one was so worth it and would've been a shame to waste.

Duck & Foie Gras Ravioli

My friend ordered the duck & foie gras ravioli.  I had the pleasure of taking a bite out of this.  Tasty and just as sophisticated as it sounds.  My voracious appetite could've carbo-loaded, as my eyes and stomach wanted to greedily finish not just the bread basket, my tomato & basil spaghetti but also my friend's duck foie gras ravioli!!  But doing so would make me look like a starving shipwrecked soul, not to mention a poor dining companionl... I wouldn't want to lose a friendship because of starving a friend!  (Although this gluttonous dream makes me think of a particular Friends foodie non-etiquette moment with Joey...

Photo Source

Oh, I almost forgot that I also ordered the organic chicken as my main entree.  The chicken was cooked well with a nice crispy texture, but what made this dish even better was the fregola (similar to cous cous), summer beans, fava puree & fegato currant jus.  I enjoyed mixing the fava puree with the fegato currant sauce over the fregola.  This was the tasty complement to the fresh, organic chicken.  Although overall this wasn't a bad dish, I could have done without it in place of having a 2nd pasta dish.

Bottom Line: Scarpetta is worth the hype.  This is not your everyday Italian restaurant.  Fresh, simple yet sophisticated and upscale.  The spaghetti, tomato & basil impresses way more than you would expect it to.  The food is delicious overall, from the moment the bread basket hits the table to their handmade pastas.  

Happy Noshing, Jeanne