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Home > Restaurants > Insieme

Insieme

Critic's Pick Critics' Pick

The Michelangelo
777 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10019 40.761601 -73.982837
nr. 51st St.  See Map | Subway Directions Hopstop Popup
212-582-1310 Send to Phone

Photo by Morini & Montanari for New York Magazine

Official Website

restaurantinsieme.com

Prices

$26-$32

Payment Methods

American Express, MasterCard, Visa

Special Features

  • Breakfast
  • Brunch - Daily
  • Brunch - Weekend
  • Dine at the Bar
  • Notable Wine List
  • Private Dining/Party Space
  • Prix-Fixe
  • Theater District

Alcohol

  • Full Bar

Reservations

Recommended

Profile

This venue is closed.

Insieme is an Italian restaurant, too, but as the slightly tortured name indicates, it's less casual and bohemian, and much more studied. The room is decorated in the self-consciously spare Craft style, with dining tables made from bleached French white oak and curtains of billowing silk shading the windows. These curtains have a pleasant cocooning effect, and as you study the menu, with its references to ramp purée, pheasant eggs, and "pasture-fed baby beef," you don't feel like you're in Times Square anymore. You're back downtown, at some reconstituted, Mediterranean version of Craft 2.0. The restaurant's name ("together" in Italian) refers to the overly complex menu, which is really two documents intertwined in one. A "traditional" Italian menu is printed side-by-side with a more experimental, "contemporary" list. Once you've oriented yourself, it's a good idea to stick to the traditional side of things, especially in the early going. Among the contemporary items, the epicures at my table preferred the lamb carpaccio (sprinkled with righteously organic fava beans) to the bland calamari ripieni (wan ringlets of squid tossed with ramps and bits of orange) and the washugyu beef in brodo spiked with a little too much anise. But none of these compared with the traditional veal tartare (made with the aforementioned pasture-fed baby beef) or the excellent fritto misto alla Lucchese, containing sweetbreads rolled in flour, veal tongue, and a piece of calf's liver so tender it caused my colleague the Steak Loon to pause in rapturous silence and lift his eyes up toward the heavens.

 

Ideal Meal

Fritto misto alla Lucchese, lasagne, lesso misto, chicken or lamb, gianduja bar.

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