David Lerner

I am fascinated that the most interesting facet of Del Posto to be discussed ad nauseum by so many expert foodies is the price of the valet parking! What does that say about a restaurant, that the parking is more remarkable than any other aspect, including the food?

Enjoyed breakfasts at "Cooking & Eating" (sorry, I forget how you say that in Dutch, which is of course what's on the door). It's on one of the "three streets".

Went Saturday night at 7:30. The service was a bit sloppy. I wasn't much impressed with the mixed salad - not enough dressing and it had no zing (if you call it champagne citrus vinaigrette I expect a bit of flavor). We were saying no return. But...my wife had three appetizers, and would reorder two of the three (philipine spring rolls and a risotto that looked too complicated but tased very good, having both texture and flavor). After being annoyoned that there were only two veggie entrees and they both contained meat substitutes - tofu and seitan - I got the vegetarian bento box (tofu) and was delighted. Flavor, texture, contrasts, more flavors. Most satisifying avowedly veggie entree I've had in years. We'll definitely return to Colors.

Heading back to Naples and Ravello in May. One of us is a vegetarian. We know about the pizza, can anyone recommend other good choices (dishes, restaurants, or both) that aren't seafood only? Ravello itself doesn't seem to have any great food (or didn't 18 years ago), but we loved the town, the square, the view and everything else - we're happy to drive down below (or out the back) for dinner. We're more interested in the food than the ambience (Don Alfonso was too fancy and refined for our tastes - we prefer simpler dishes and bolder flavors). I'm enjoying some wonderful Apricot jam from Vesuvius, and I know the famed San Marzano and pomodorinni del pinello (sic?) tomatoes from the area - can anyone recommend specific restaurants or dishes to enjoy them in? Are there other vegetable dishes or pastas of note in the area? We're not afraid of red sauce if it's really good. And I'm always looking for great peperonata. Also heading down toward Paestum for a day, only found one restaurant in the area in the Slow Food guide (La Pergola in Capaccio). It sounds pretty good actually. Thanks!

Their vegetarian green chile is delicious, and they serve excellent flour tortillas with it. (I think they offer basically the same chile as a burrito filling or quesadilla filling as well.) It's a great value sort of place, but it is too loud for me.

Kee's Chocolates on Thompson Street is my favorite NYC producer by far. Worlds apart from Torres.

I've been enjoying Col Legno for about fifteen years now, it's our standard restaurant for pre-theatre (Pearl, Public Theatre, etc) in that area, and we chose it this year for Valentine's day as well. They tend to have simple dishes that are very well made and very tasty. My favorites include probably the finest "garlic bread" in New York, which they call Fettunta (excellent chewy grilled bread, imported from NJ, with a rubbing of garlic and a drizzle of olive oil - delicious!). The tomato bread soup (Pappa al Pomodoro) has a great flavor and isn't overly bready as it can be. They sometimes have a simple cold roasted red pepper soup (I've seen the roasted peppers emerging from the wood fired oven), what would probably be called a passato in Italy. Just pure simple pleasure. The Benjamino pizza (tomato sauce, cheese, red onion) is simple and excellent. Not the finest crust in the world (Una Pizza wins in my book), but delicious toppings in perfect proportions make it very satisfying. I really enjoy some of the pastas, including the pesto and the leek & tomato. A simple fruit plate for dessert and you could easily be in Italy. It's also refreshing to visit an Italian restaurant where the wines start below $20/bottle. It's very rare to find a restaurant that is stable for fifteen years, especially in New York where so many places feel that they have to reinvent themselves every three years, and as long as their dishes remain as tasty and satisfying as they have been, I'd be happy to see Col Legno stay the same for another fifteen years. Consistency can be a wonderful thing. (Actually the walls do change - they are usually displaying art by a local artist and it seems to change every few months - not all of the art is to my taste.)

"Piled up to the sky" doesn't sound like you are discussing pizza - some other dish entirely I think.

Where is Parkside? Not in Zagat.

Had an excellent Italian dinner at Hostaria (very small, you need to reserve). Also enjoyed dinner at Dining 11, creative and very satisfying. Had very good breakfasts at eating and cookikng (Eten & Kuchen?) on the middle of the three horizontal of the nine streets, off Prinsengracht.

I also liked the Pizocheri, although I prefer it baked a bit with a little crustiness (like my wife makes it). It was a bit soft and slippery, perhaps that's what Bruni was commenting on. The Mozarella came with a different assortment of tastes than you describe (olive oil, balsamic, both excellent, persimmon jam and blood orange...but it was all very good and although an unusual presentation, very satisfying. I also thought the limonata caprese (three takes on lemon) dessert was excellent. I don't think I would head far out of my way as a dinner destination, but as a very good pre-theatre restuarant I will definitely return.

DeMarco's opened today. Totally different look and feel than DiFara...the Houston street side is a shiny modern pizzeria with a large and unusually visible kitchen area (with nothing much going on yet), on the McDougal street side (connected on the staff side, but no connection on the customer side) it's what looks likes the same wood bar as Nellies, and about a dozen tables, unusually upscale feel for a pizzeria, and on another planet than DiFara in terms of atmosphere. The staff we as extremely friendly and nice. I don't think you can judge a pizzeria on day one, but I do plan to return. I'm not sure it will ever be in the same artisanal league as DiFara, but it may turn out to be a good addition to the neighborhood. (There's a possibility that the larger effort required for me to visit DiFara adds to its appeal, but I enjoy watching Dom work at DiFara, same clear love for his work and his product as the guy at Una Pizza Napoletana). I can only say that the first night's effort at DeMarco was way better than what I had at Arturo's a few weeks ago.

My wife and I travel to Italy about once a year, usually renting a car and staying in 2-4 different hotels, or staying in a larger city without a car. For my wife's 50th birthday we rented Il Cucolo, one of the Villa's listed on Jim Dixon's RealGoodFood site and brought along three other couples. It was actually in Palaia, not Chianni. It was a wonderful week and a wonderful place, although it was August (we never travel to Italy in summer, but that's when my wife's birthday is), and the bedrooms were rather warm (no air conditioning). But having a nice pool to jump into made up for that... The location was great, nice views of the small town and fields (and one hotel/resort in the distance). Total privacy, beautiful swimming pool, nice landscaping. Upstairs four very comfortable bedrooms each with private bath, downstairs a compact but very functional kitchen, large living room and large sitting room, dining alcove, etc. I think there was a fireplace, but it was summer. We ate out on the back patio, viewing the pool and fields and town. For the birthday night Omar arranged for a local woman and her husband to come by and prepare dinner, it was a definite success (not gourmet, just good solid stuff). The house cost a little under $2000 for the week, all four couples were very comfortable and happy, seemed to me like a good value. Depending on your point of view, the town was perfectly centrally located or a little deep in the hills. We did day trips almost every day. For Florence we drove to a nearby town and took a train, for the others we drove, I seem to recall it was under an hour in any direction to Sienna, Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano, etc. This was mostly on smaller back country roads, the distances were not great. But it did mean that most nights we didn't have evening dinners in major towns, because we didn't want to drive the dark windy hilly roads back home late at night, although we did several times with no trouble. There were good supermarkets within 20 minutes and several good smaller markets in the town (10 minute walk, 2 minute drive) with everything we needed to make dinner. The town also had a good pizzeria/restaurant (simple linguine with summer truffles for $10 was more than fine) and a more up-scale cozy restaurant as well where we ate twice. I would totally trust Jim Dixon and Omar on their rentals (and their olive oils), I have no connection other than as a happy customer. I think you have to decide if you want a bed and breakfast or agriturismo sort of place, which can be wonderful, but where you are someone else's guest (who has to talk to you and feed you and entertain you), or if you just want a house so you can sort of feel what it would be like to live there, dealing with most of the details on your own. P.S. But those european all-in-one clothes washer/dryers - watch out. Once it's on the dry cycle, your clothes are locked in until the machine decides its over and cool enough, and I have a few shirts that are still permanently wrinkled because I couldn't take them out and hang them up when I wanted to.

it depends where you go to lunch but i can assour you that the prices are not so high if you eat in good traditional osteria (any of the one in a slow food books) ← Actually, Latteria is a good traditional osteria, and we found it in the Slow Food book. P.S. I have to agree with Vesnuccia about Joia - didn't do it for this vegetarian at all.

We enjoyed the presepio on display in many churches. Fifteen years ago at least, there were several churches with presepio competitions with thirty or fifty different presepio on display. These are the usual creche (manger) scenes you see all over in Churches at Christmas, but far more originality and wide variety, done in many different styles, not the standard church supply store stuff.

We used the Slow Food Osterie D'Italia guide with good success. The standout (perhaps because it was in the middle of nowhere and didn't look like much and had few pretensions) was La Roselle in Giba. My wife had a wonderful seafood appetizer, and we had delicious asparagus and artichoke ravioli (two separate offerings). I usually think asparagus should only be eaten with a simple sauce (butter or bread crumbs) and not used as an ingredient, but this was amazing thinnest I've ever seen asparagus and was quite marvelous. I wouldn't tell you to travel hundreds of miles for this, but certainly a nice afternoon drive (we kicked ourselves that we had no camera to record the group of cows lounging on a sand beach on our way to Giba). Actually Giba itself was on the way to somewhere else, I forget where.

I guess my father really was a foodie...several of the places on the 3 star list were our family haunts in the 60s...of them, only Copenhagen was upscale in terms of service or ambience. Bo Bo (Chinese) first dim sum restaurant in New York, only on Sundays. Also great steamed pork buns Copenhagen (Danish) Amazing (for a kid) buffet on weekends...probably what you'd find in a fancy hotel these days El Faro (Spanish) Chicken vilarroy, paella, Pork with almond sauce, beef with green sauce, fantastic natillia... (So why was pork a featured item at two of three places my family went after Sunday School at Temple Emanuel?)

I love zuchini scapece. Can you post your recipe? It's done very well in New York at Ottimo on West 24th Street, and at Benitos II in Little Italy (except that most food snobs won't visit Little Italy).

I am baffled at the success of Krispy Kreme. Although they are okay while you are eating them, they leave an awful aftertaste and feel in my mouth. Anything but Krispy Kreme!

Kitchen Market on 8th Avenue near 21st street has a small but good grocery selection, but it's not cheap.

Part of the authenticity of eating in just about any restaurant in Italy is the attitude toward food. I frequent Lupa and Po, respect Babbo, and enjoy Il Mulino once a year, but Col Legno reminds me more of eating in Italy. In your average restaurant in Italy, there is one seating, spread over three or so hours. They don't seem to have considered the idea of turning the tables three times a night. In New York, we frequently reach the end of our bottle of wine before we quite finish the meal, even if we eat in an hour. Somehow in Italy the one bottle of wine almost always seems to last through the meal, even if it has an extra course or two (okay, maybe we did start with a little Prosecco or spumante). It's just the pace they set. To me, authenticity isn't solely about the food, it's about the time you eat and the way it's served and the expectations and the rituals. I love living and eating in New York, and the food is delicious, but I frequently get more pleasure from a meal in a "lesser" restaurant in Italy. This is one kind of authenticity that New York restaurants are unlikely to ever achieve. P.S. And the tomatoes are another problem here for authenticity, frequently even in foodie restaurants - tasteless tomatoes that a pizzieria in Turin would be embarassed to put in a simple salad.

I remember that name from my youth, but I can't picture the place - I do remember, J.P. Pizzuro delicatessen in the about the same location - an old line italian deli, like the much smaller salumeria that was on 62nd street between 1st and 2nd Ave.

I remember Gitlitz - excellent french fries. Good pastami. I really miss Sabor on Cornelia street - yummy Cuban food, owned by two women (I found Sabor when I put some money in the New York Feminist Federal Credit Union across the street - The Federal Credit Union Adminstration paid me back when the credit union closed, but since Sabor closed no one has given me such satisfying ropa vieja, yuca con mojo, or something as simple and well prepared as their avacado salad). Rosolio on Barrow street was another extremely satisfying local place that I still miss. They served some less common (at the time) italian vegetables, salads and pastas (an excellent artichoke pasticcio similar to the one I loved in Venice once). I think the owner is (or was) involved in La Streghe on West Broadway, but that never clicked for us. Sahib, the Indian restauarant on 86th between second and third had one of the best lunch buffets and unually good Onion Kulcha. And Cafe Geiger next door - really good creamed spinach, apple pancakes, red cabbage, and don't forget the jelly donut's with apricot jam in them, fresh from the fryer. Ideal restaurant down the block was also an experience, and the rasberry jelly donuts around the corner weren't too shabby. And Alfredo Viaizi (sic?) places in the village...Tavolcalda da Alfredo had amazing russian salad, and a wonderful bagna cauda (did I really ever like something with that many anchovies in it?).

When it comes to Hazelnut gelato, I actually find Haagen-Daz (huge corporate behemoth) better than Ciao Bella. And as I recall, it has fewer and simpler ingredients than Ciao Bella as well. I agree that this is a different product than "arisanal" gelato in Italy (and that varies rather widely as well), but factory gelato is not evil and can be rather pleasant.

Had the best Spaghetti al Pomodoro I have ever had at Mimi alla Ferrovia. Seems like such a simple dish, but it's rarely done well and this was superb. Also had a good pepper appetizer (stuffed? can't recall). My wife had an average at best fish dish. Neither the service nor the atmosphere was anything to write home about. Ate at Don Alfonso the day before, it didn't do much for us - fancy and expensive but not delicious (even though I liked their Olive Oil that I bough from Jim Dixon). But I'm a vegetarian, so my choices were limited. Here the atmosphere and and service were excellent. We've never been blown away by any Michelin three star in Italy - I think Michelin is rating how French (and complicated) the cooking and serving style is, and that's not a good way to rate Italian food - simple perfect ingredients expertly prepared, and less than five ingredients per dish being what I see as the Italian way. 20 years ago there was a very helpful Gault-Millau guide for Italy, nowadays we use the Slow Food Osterie D'Italia and have rarely been disappointed. It's only in Italian so takes quite a bit of work to decode sometimes, but is very clear on the cuisine and specialties.