dell'anima - Review

Intro
dell'anima - Highly Recommended
268 West Broadway at 6th Avenue
New York, NY
Phone: (212) 925-1600

Been curious to check out dell'Anima based on Colameco's glowing reviews of the place. Honestly, there's been a bunch of times where I think he's dead wrong about a place, but this place is so f'n on. Perfectly cooked pasta with huge flavors - I think this is my favorite pasta joint in the city right now. Overall, I give the restaurant a 87/100.

Our Menu
1) Sweetbreads “alla piastra” parsley root puree, blueberries, pickled chanterelles **
2) Linguini cherry tomatoes, mint, chilies, sea urchin, colatura di alici **
3) Tagliatelle alla Bolognese ***

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way * Good ** Great *** What the F – in a good way

Dish Comments
1) I love me some sweetbreads, but most have the same profile which is usually quite delicious. You know, the crispy exterior with the uber creamy interior. These were just crazy creamy and had such a huge bright flavor - loads of lemon juice and blueberries which were more tart than sweet. Incredibly delicious.
2) I've had uni pasta way back when at basta pasta, but it was just OK there. Decided to give it a second try based on watching them cook it. Great idea - it was completely delicious. Perfectly al dente pasta, great tomatoes, nice spice from the chilis, and blown away by how awesome the mint tasted with the pasta. The uni added more of a stock or demi glace effect providing this huge background note, but unfortunately none of the uni flavor came out. Didn't matter though, it was still f'n delicious...
3) Mr Risotto ordered a nice cake for dessert and I saw the chefs rocking the "bolo" all night long. Like a terrible tease - I just had to have me some. Another great WTF type of idea. Perfectly silky and decent chew to the pasta with the same silky type of meat. Pasta water and butter do wonders! Brought me back 10 years ago to my first bolognese dish at Babbo - extremely happy and completely a WTF type of dish...

Overall Restaurant Experience (87/100)

• Food 8.7/10 – I only had 3 dishes, but all 3 were so f'n delicious. Not fine dining by any means, but just really solid make you smile type of food. Big flavors...
  
• Service 8.8/10 – Waitress was easy on the eyes and the food came out quick. It also helped that we sat at the chef's counter watching the chef's cook. Here, the chefs are kickin' so much ars, they don't talk to you so much; but they saw I was going nuts over the food and we chatted briefly.
  
• Atmosphere 9.0/10 – Tiny place maybe seating 50 or less. Right when you walk in there's a bar, that's a teeny bit crowded. Towards the back is the open kitchen cooking in front of a marble bar. We sat there and they were the best seats in the house albeit crazy hot. Pretty amazing watching 3 dudes just kicking ass cooking a crazy amount of dishes. Like dinner and a show, but much better. Didn't remember anything else about the deco, but very cool type of place. There were a lot of groups of girls at this place and some couples. We got there at 7:30 on a Thursday and were surprisingly seated right away.
  
• Price 8.4/10 – Moderately expensive - about $18 a pasta dish but they were decent sized. My bill was very pricey but I ordered 2 glasses of wine (about 10-14 a piece), 2 pastas, and an app. Either way - I was extremely happy, so the price seemed right to my happiness factor.
  

Closing Comments
Me thinks this is definitely my favorite pasta joint right now. I loved Convivio and I was much happier here. Definitely coming back for the pollo fra diavolo which looked spectacular. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but this was spur of the moment...waiting for the latest android / ms mobile phone to come out with a 5MP camera phone.