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 Otto Enoteca Pizzeria
The last time Mario Batali flipped pizza dough for a
living, it was as an ambitious dishwasher turned
pieman at a place called Stuff Yer Face in New
Brunswick, New Jersey. “Funny guy, very
confident,” recalls Bill Washawanny, his old
boss. “He wore shorts.” Now, after a lot
of wasted years spent creating hugely successful
restaurants, taping cooking shows, and winning
accolades, Batali is back in the pizza business (and
still in those shorts). Otto Enoteca Pizzeria
opened last week, revealing itself to be by far the
simplest, cheapest, most casual restaurant in the
Batali empire, from its one-page menu to its bustling
180 seats, all bare painted-wood tables and ruddy
walls.
With meals that focus on individual-size pizzas
and finish with spectacularly smooth gelati,
it’s also Batali’s foray into family
dining, albeit with several distinctive twists. Kids
will love the place, even if they can’t be
persuaded to finish their vegetable antipasti, little
$4 ramekins full of salsify spears or caper-strewn
cauliflower alla Siciliana. Other pre-pizza
bites—which may be ordered in the barroom along
with quartinos of wine and consumed standing up at
marble-topped tables—evoke Lupa and Babbo in
their assortment of testa, coppa, octopus, and an
especially tender lime-and-olive-oil-cured swordfish.
There is a different bruschetta, fritto (fried food),
and pizza every day; the daily pizzas are named after
the Otto offspring, the seven children of the four
partners, who also lay claim to a permanently reserved
table. The nineteen everyday pies—all lavash-thin
and, in a break with tradition, cooked on a flattop
griddle—are divided into Otto and Classica
categories, the former imbued with delicious Bataliana
like shaved bottarga and lardo (or pork fatback, also
known as pure cholesterol). Otto opens at 9 a.m. for
mortadella panini and blood-orange juice, serves
nonstop until 11:30 p.m., and doesn’t deliver or
take reservations for parties smaller than seven.
Prepare to wait—or befriend a junior Batali. — ROB PATRONITE
1 Fifth Avenue
212-995-9559
· Cuisine: Pizza, Italian
Cassis
Cassis means “black currant” in French,
and it’s the name of a fishing village outside
Marseilles. It’s also catchy and easy to
remember—which is why partners Evelyne Gaidot and
Fabrice Dinonno chose it when they converted the
former Stone Street Tavern into the new Cassis.
(The similar-sounding Pastis, after all, has done well
by Keith McNally.) They’ve given the pubby
premises a face-lift and scheduled tri-yearly art
exhibits by local painters and photographers. Dinonno,
a native Marseillais, is a veteran of Bouterin,
Jubilée, and most recently Les Halles Downtown,
where he snagged chef Maurice Hurley to reprise
classics like pâté, moules marinières,
and (obviously) steak-frites. Financial-district
resident and first-time restaurateur Gaidot padded the
wine list with affordable bottles from small
producers, and is eagerly anticipating next summer,
when she can put her sidewalk permit to
canine-friendly use. “The waiter will bring the
dog water, first thing.
52 Stone Street
212-425-3663
· Cuisine: French
Thomas Beisl
Before Danube, before Wallsé, before Cafe
Sabarsky, there was Vienna ’79 and its
wunderkind chef, Thomas Ferlesch. After an eleven-year
run at Café des Artistes, Ferlesch decamped for
Brooklyn, where he’s turned Fort Greene’s
old New City Bar & Grill into Thomas Beisl
(beisl means “bistro”).
“Everyone knows what a trattoria is and what a
cantina is,” says Ferlesch, determined to be the
one to incorporate the beisl and its socially
inclusive spirit into the American idiom. “I
picture this as a place where a plumber is at the bar
and a doctor is sitting down to dinner”—or,
presumably, vice versa. Given the artsy locale,
though, it’s more apt to appeal to the
avant-garde pretheater crowd en route to bam and
dancers on break from the Mark Morris studio up the
street—all of them feasting with egalitarian
fervor on chicken-liver terrine with kumquat-cranberry
compote, Wiener schnitzel with parsley potatoes, and
beef goulash with spaetzle. Even if you know nothing
else about Viennese restaurants, you know
they’re not the place to skip dessert, and
Ferlesch’s include palatchinken, cheese strudel,
and Linzer torte (mit schlag).
25 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn
718-222-5800
· Cuisine: Viennese
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