Table Crashing: Nello on Madison Avenue
5/02/2008 at 4:30 PM
Tags: Table Crashing, Nello Balan, Restaurants (all tags)
Nello on Madison Avenue is a storied restaurant for the rich and famous. It's one of those places that always pops up in gossip columns and, when the weather's nice and celebs are chewing away on the sidewalk, the paparazzi-driven tabloid magazines.
In fact, its restaurateur, Nello Balan, is perhaps just as well-known in Manhattan as some of his customers. First, there was the incident about an alleged bribe to Page Six (hence the gossip column presence.) Then there was the incident with the model who took his limited edition $1,000 umbrella and didn't return it, thus prompting Balan to publicize it in Page Six. (Full circle?)
With all this sort of superficial, lives of rich people in Manhattan type of drama, does anyone even know what the food is like? We table-crashed the place to find out.
Nello is just a few Christian Louboutin-clad heel clicks away from Barneys New York and directly across from the Hermes store. You're in UES territory now and you better dress the part.
Upon entering we were greeted by two hosts who inquired about our reservation. We were early for a 5:30 pm reservation on a Tuesday which may seem senior-citizen style--indeed we were dining with one--but guess who else was there? Natalie Portman.
She was eating with two friends at a table against the wall in the middle of the room. She was talking loud. We sat in the back corner in the banquette and even with a hearing impairment we could still hear what she was saying. There was a lot of "You knows" and "I feels" but nothing too exciting.
Our first waiter of about five came over and took our drink order. A Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio that runs about $22 for a glass. Yikes. Good thing our senior citizen friend just received his social security check. Also, it's a good thing we liked that glass of wine. Still, it sort of set the tone for the rest of the meal. Everything was delicious but with totally jacked up prices.
We split three dishes with our friend starting with the insalata di carciofi--"thinly sliced artichokes, avocado, white truffle oil, pecorino." Delicious. All you have to do is say white truffle oil and we're there. We moved on to the rigatoni with pomodoro and mozzarella di bufala. It was good but not worth $37.
We finished up with the veal scallopini and eggplant which was soft and light and flavorful. Probably one of the best scallopini we've had. Our senior-citizen dining companion agreed and he's lived way longer than us!
As for the restaurant itself, we could see why Richie Rich and co. come here. It's small, clean and well-organized. There were beautiful fragrant flowers arranged at the bar, the back of the room and in the bathrooms. Allergy sufferers beware. And since it was early, the pace was relaxed and mellow. No crazy Italian waiters running around, trying to weave in between tables.
Even Nello was kicking it in the back, working with his assistants on a computer. The gals pulled out a fancy camera and began taking pictures of people and things in the restaurant, so we're guessing there's a website coming soon. For the list of full prices so you can budget accordingly, head to NY Mag.
Related Stories:
· Table Crashing coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: NYT]
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