Selecting the right restaurant for a hot date is a subtle art. Excellent food is a given, but ambiance matters just as much. The dining room should be quiet enough for easy conversation, yet not so hushed as to feel precious or sepulchral. Soft, forgiving light is your unsung wingman. Request a table just off the main flow—close enough to enjoy the salon’s buzz, discreet enough for a stolen kiss over dessert.
Fine Italian restaurants are almost always a safe bet. Flickering candlelight. The aroma of truffles, browned butter, and basil. Glasses of Nebbiolo redolent of roses and raspberries. Disney got it right in Lady and the Tramp—red sauce is a love potion.
A pearl of wisdom carried over from my college wrestling days: if a dish is too heavy to eat before a match, it’s too heavy to eat on a date. Opt for light pasta, beef carpaccio, or tuna crudo. Save the gorgonzola gnocchi or osso buco for an evening when the stakes are lower.
As Valentine’s Day draws nigh, these splendid Italian restaurants in NYC are as romantic as a Petrarch sonnet.
Tucci
Entering Tucci is like stepping through the looking glass from downtown Manhattan straight into a candlelit Florentine villa. The menu is a love letter to the Tucci family’s Tuscan roots. Start with the meatballs, a riff on a recipe passed down from owner Max Tucci’s grandmother. The tender spheres of meat, slicked with Calabrian chili marinara and finished with tangy manchego, are as comforting as a hug from nonna. The wine list is as chock-full of Italian superstars as the ’06 World Cup squad. Dazzle your darling with a bottle of Barolo or Brunello to pair with plates of silken pasta. Don’t skip the cocktails—especially if you have a weakness for rare amari.
Fornino
With its airy dining room and brick-oven glow, Fornino is a date-night gem in Greenpoint. Neapolitan pizzas are the kitchen’s métier—blistered in a wood-fired oven and dressed with sweet San Marzano tomatoes, caramelized mozzarella, and piquant olive oil. Banish the February chill with a bottle of Chianti to start, then order a pasta to share and a heart-shaped Neapolitan pie for a festive flourish. The ice-cream sundae, paired with a glass of Amaro Montenegro, is the final exclamation point to the evening.
Park Rose
In the 18th century, Rose Hill was a pocket of farmland in the heart of Manhattan that drew waves of Italian immigrants. Park Rose—a portmanteau of Rose Hill and Park Avenue—pays homage to this forgotten history with locavore-driven Italian-American fare. Fresh flowers festoon the high-ceilinged dining room, while semi-private booths invite unhurried tête-à-tête with your flame.
The menu is a roster of well-executed crowd-pleasers—chicken Milanese with tomato beurre blanc, branzino piccata brightened with lemon and artichoke, and a spicy pepperoni pizza enlivened with hot honey and cherry peppers.
For Valentine’s Day, Park Rose offers a prix-fixe dinner paired with live blues and jazz. The Nutella tiramisu layered with strawberries and whipped mascarpone is pure dopamine in a bowl.
Torrisi
Torrisi is a New York City super restaurant in the same rarefied echelon as Le Bernardin or Eleven Madison Park. The clientele is a gallery of Manhattan glitterati, and with plush banquette and low lighting, the dining room is consummately sexy. The tortellini pomodoro, a deceptively simple bowl of pasta finished with a velvety tomato sauce, epitomizes the minimalist perfection of truly great Italian fare. It’s a tough reservation to land, but for an indelible Valentine’s Day dinner, it’s the ne plus ultra.
Delmonico’s
Delmonico’s is an archetypal New York City steakhouse, but the menu, like the ownership, exudes Italian pizazz. The first fine-dining establishment in these United States, it’s one of those venerable New York establishments where you wish the walls could speak. Over its long history, the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Nicolai Telsa have graced the dining room.
Begin with a platter of oysters or, if you’re feeling indulgent, the full seafood tower. The steaks are world-famous, but lighter dishes like black cod and chicken a la keene are sneaky showstoppers. The cellar is among the most impressive in America—unless you’re Robert Parker, defer to the elite sommeliers for a pairing.
Quality Italian
From the storied restaurant group behind Don Angie, Zou Zou’s, and Quality Meats, Quality Italian strikes the golden chord between buzzy and intimate. Concrete ceilings, exposed steel, and burnished wood lend the dining room an industrial-chic charm. For a whimsical comfort dish, order the chicken parm pizza—a pie topped with crispy bird, caramelized mozzarella, bright tomato sauce, and shaved Périgord truffles.
FOLK
Jay Kumar is like the Carlos Santana of chefs—otherworldly, virtuosic, and resistant to tidy categorization. A native of South India, he cut his culinary chops across Europe and New York City. FOLK, his recently opened restaurant in Park Slope, blends the flavors of South Asia and Italy. Like a tyrst between a Vedanta guru and a Milanese supermodel, the union sounds improbable but works beautifully.
Indo-Italian highlights include biryani arancini and tagliatelle pasta made with roti. The thoughtfully curated wines complement the vivid flavors, but the pro move is the Negroni on tap—batched fresh daily by Alyssa, Kumar’s nonpareil bartender.
L’Amico
Nothing is more romantic in the dead of winter than the warm glow of a roaring wood-fired oven, the centerpiece of L’Amico. The copper-paneled, smoke-breathing beast lends a piquant zip to pastas, pizzas, and marbled steaks. You could build an entire meal from the antipasti alone—fish crudos, crisp salads, and Italian charcuterie. The cicchetti, thin slices of bread topped with delicacies like peekytoe crab and gourmet mushrooms, are as scrumptious as any you’ll find at canalside bacari in Venice.
