Salumeria Rosi

During my stay in New York, I probably had my best meals at Salumeria Rosi. And as is often the case with the best things in life, we found it rather unexpectedly. I was walking around the Upper West Side with one of my friends when we chanced upon it and started reading the menu posted outside the restaurant. My friend had a feeling it would be a place worth visiting so we came back a little while later and sat down to a delectable meal – one of three during my short stay in New York.

I love how Salumeria Rosi works, basically, you order several dishes — they recommend between three and five for a party of two — and they’re served as soon as they’re ready in a tapas-sized portion.

Even the bread was fresh and delicious.

We started with a bean and fresh herb crostini which I quite enjoyed.

Then came what was perhaps the best dish I had during my entire stay in the city: the most delicious gnocchi I ever had! It’s actually a very simple dish, gnocchi, pecorino cheese, basil and a simple tomato sauce, but somehow everything was cooked to perfection and you could feel the individual flavors of each ingredient in the dish.

While my go-to dish at Salumeria was the gnocchi, my friend’s was definitely the pasta amatriciana — and I have to say it was equally delicious! Perfectly cooked al dente pasta, topped with a hearty meat sauce and pecorino cheese, this restaurant is definitely doing something right.

On my third visit, I finally decided to try something different, so I went with the lasagna, and I absolutely loved it. Another winner at Salumeria!

Could a restaurant call itself a salumeria if it didn’t serve a fine selection of Italian meats? On our final visit, we ordered their selezione del salumiere and frankly even though I am not traditionally a fan of that kind of thing, I have to say, these meats were so fresh and flavorful, I enjoyed every morsel that came my way!