Pepolino 281 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013 feels like an Italian guy’s home. All the waiters are Italian men and probably 75% of diners are too. Everyone is nice. It’s pretty big (2 floors + outside) but cozy, moderately disorganized, and as loud as a frat house. They seated us with half of our party missing, allow for cakes with no plating charge (big points here), and even gave us containers to pack our left-over cupcakes. It did take a really long time for a bottle of wine to come, but it’s forgiven since they do seem to try.
The baskets of cold, borderline stale, bread was served with a tomato flan. It tasted like a solid jello-like form of tomato and oil, which is not appealing by itself or spread on bread.
Note: Even though I did as much as I could to edit the pictures, they still look yellow, and that’s because they have yellow lights everywhere.
Appetizers gave me the sense that they generally used very fresh ingredients, but that the chef here lacks control. The Carpaccio with mushrooms and shredded cheese would have been really nice had it not been over-powered by twigs of rosemary, as in 8 to 10 leaves per clump.
Then the Beet Salad exhibited the same problem, having been sliced pretty thin, but paired with matchstick sized orange peels.
For the antipasto plate, why not change the bruschetta part to something else during NY winters, when they clearly have seasonal depression.
One appetizer did float my boat, the mussels pulled form the shell and tossed in a wonderfully simple butter and chive sauce. It seemed elegant and almost out of place.
When entrees came, it was one of those evening where no really talked about the food. There wasn’t too much complaining, but there wasn’t any familiar moans and groans, no yums or try this.
The Wild Boar Stew, though probably the best of the entrees, was spooned over some roasted acorn squash, and just seemed like a weeknight dinner anyone could have made.
You can tell I wasn’t thrilled with this place, but at the same time, it wasn’t bad. It was just super forgettable, and that’s such a shame because I love places where you can bring a birthday cake and make reservations. Ah well.
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Are the prices worth it? Sometimes places like this aren’t so much “have to go to” places, but they do come in handy when you want affordably good food and you’re celebrating a birthday or something like that, where the company is the primary focus. I can see the +/- aspect of it.
Albany Jane, it’s affordable, but cheap…coming out to roughly $62 per person with 1 bottle + 1 glass for the entire table (6 people). Personally, I would not go back since food is so important to me, but I like you said, when it’s not the focus, it’s decent.
As a regular italian customer of pepolino, I can honestly say that pepolino truly reflects authentic Florentine cousine. Jessica, since food is so important to you, have you ever been to Tuscany?
and you should ask your self why 75% of Pepolinos clientele is Italian.
eleonora, I hope you don’t think you discredit me because I haven’t been to Tuscany. That’s just a complete lapse in logic. However, Tuscany is next on my list since Florence happens to be my husbands favorite place on Earth. (I have been to a few other parts of Italy.) In any case, the reason why people go to restaurants spans more than just the food. As a Chinese person, I’ve seen bad Chinese restaurants filled with Chinese people as well. It happens. See how full Starbucks is? Also, I don’t think Pepolino is bad, just forgettable.