$$$$ • Sicilian • Upper West Side
My husband and I celebrated my birthday here and it was absolutely perfect! At 8:15 on a Saturday, the restaurant was busy and lively and we got a terrific table in the area between the bar and the back dining room - we felt part of the energy of the bar without it being chaotic. The food was delicious. We started with focaccia (you can order a smaller order, which was appreciated since there were only two of us), arancini (my husband said they were the best he ever had - they are usually the size of softballs and dried out but these were small and perfectly cheesy with a delicious cream sauce), and the radicchio salad. For mains, my husband had the rigatoni all'amatriciana and I had the duck pappardelle. Both were fantastic and for dessert we had the ricotta cheesecake. The service was excellent (thank you, Raiza!) and every person we interacted with was friendly and warm. Earlier in the day we received a text asking for the name of the birthday celebrant and our menus had a personalized birthday message printed on them which they packed up in a gift bag for us to take home. They also brought us a complementary prosecco toast! They truly made us feel so special from the moment we walked in. It was a perfect evening and we are already planning to try to get a reservation for New Year's Eve.