Babbo: The Beginning

New York City has so many amazing restaurants. There are so many that we still haven't been to and that we want to visit, and before tonight, Babbo was on that list. Babbo is Mario Batali's (very) popular restaurant in Greenwich Village near Washington Square Park. It's one of those places that is in such demand that you often have to call a month in advance to get a weekend reservation. We had a gift card from A's brother and his wife from Christmas, so we called up a month before our engage-a-versary* and claimed a spot.

* We celebrate multiple anniversaries a year. Even though we're married, why should we stop celebrating other special occasions that we've celebrated throughout the years, like our dating anniversary and our engagement anniversary? It's always better to make time for happy things (in my opinion) so we continue to celebrate all the anniversaries.


The townhouse where Babbo is located was apparently formerly a restaurant called The Coach House, as signs in their bathrooms (at least the ladies room, not sure if it's in the men's room since they don't have a bowl of lemons either) tell guests. Considering I love looking at old ads, I enjoyed seeing the ads for dinner starting at $3.75 and about giant lamb chops, and newspaper reviews describing $2.50 complete dinners.

The dinner started a little oddly as the person seating us said he would seat us on the ground floor so that he could "see" us. It was a little strange. We weren't even sure what that meant. I was also a little sad because the lighting upstairs looked so much better for pictures. But other than that (which wasn't bad, just odd), the service was great. They were attentive but not smothering, which is the perfect amount.

We decided to order the pasta tasting menu with wine pairings. To extend the experience even further, and so that we actually end up posting something about Babbo instead of never finding the time, we're going to post about the tasting course by course.

The meal started with the amuse bouche - Babbo's signature chickpea bruschetta.


The chickpeas were mixed in an olive tapenade. The bread was perfect - not too soft or soggy and not too hard to bite in half. We love chickpeas so this was a great start to the meal.

Coming up: the pasta parade begins!