0 Lupa review

Some friends of Siobhan were in town last night and one of them always goes to eat at the same place, a Mario Batali owned restaurant in the heart of Greenwich Village called Lupa, whenever she is in town. We met up with them for dinner at 745. The space is relatively small, a front room with a bar and a larger back room with larger tables for bigger parties. We showed up a little early and had to wait uncomfortably by the bar where there was not enough room for us. Not a lot of places in NYC have large waiting areas, especially downtown where space is at a premium already.

We got seated at our table and ordered a bottle of wine to start the night off. I had left my phone in my jacket which was at the coat check so I was not able to take pictures of any of the food (nor would I have). We started our food order with the apple, winter greens & guanciale (a salad with pork jowl and a vinaigrette on top), the marinated funghi & farro piccolo, and the veal sweetbreads with shishito peppers. The pork jowl tasted amazing, the perfect amount of crisp and salt and the vinaigrette was made at the side of our table and poured on top right before we ate. I had never had sweetbreads before and these were battered and fried, and were very tender. As long as you don't think about what you are eating, I would recommend them to others. The funghi and farro is a hard dish to describe. It was mushrooms and farro (a wheat grain) marinated and tossed together. A unique taste.

For the main course we ordered bucatini all' amatriciana and heritage pork belly with scorzonera & pears. The bucatini was delicious, homemade pasta in a red sauce with cured pork cheek and pecorino cheese. I would definitely order that again. The pork belly was incredibly tasteful, but I couldn't get over the texture. Much of the pork belly was fat and my stomach was rebelling at the consistency of the pork belly. I ended up leaving most of it on the plate, which was a shame.

We ordered dessert, but I don't actually remember what we ended up getting. Needless to say, it was not memorable.

The service was top notch, with water always being filled up, a very knowledgeable service staff and attentive and technically proficient service (replacing glasses of wine, presenting the bottle, new silverware with each course). I would recommend this place to someone looking for good Italian food, and it was relatively cheap for 4 people (if you aren't drinking wine).