Colicchio & Sons
85 10th Ave., Meatpacking District, NY
map & more
Neighborhood
Meatpacking District
Cuisine
American
Nearby
Highline Ballroom
Hiro
The Highline
212-400-6699
Life definitely doesn’t suck for Tom Colicchio right now. Thanks to his lead role on Top Chef, Colicchio’s personal brand is bigger than ever. He’s up there with Bobby Flay and Mario Batali as the most recognizable faces in the food game. Colicchio has built successful Craft restaurants everywhere from Atlanta to Las Vegas. Problem is, when you’re a chef spending all your time in the kitchen critiquing quick fires and trying not to blatantly stare at Padma’s jugs, you’re not actually cooking. Craft and Craftbar used to be home to some of the more sought after tables in NYC. Not anymore. Although both restaurants still do good business, they’re no longer the talk of the town. The only buzz Colicchio has made cooking lately has been his well received Tom: Tuesday Night dinner, a bi-weekly limited sitting in Craft’s private dining room at $150-200 a head. Realizing it was time to get back in the mix full-time, Collichio decided to shutter his struggling Craftsteak and re-open it as Colicchio & Sons. Tom’s back in the kitchen (it’s true, we saw him), only now he’s not cooking for 32 people; he’s got to feed a whole restaurant.
Colicchio & Sons is a tale of two completely different restaurants under the same roof. The tap room bar area is very chill, offering an a la cart menu at reasonable prices (entrees $18-26). The baked duck rigatoni (only available in the tap room) is one of the most unbelievable things we’ve eaten all year and single-handedly saved this review from the sh*tter. While the plates are a bit smaller than those served in the dining room, the tap room is a good hang and the rigatoni alone is worth a return trip.
The dining room is where Colicchio lost us. There isn’t a single animal on the farm or fish in the sea not represented on the $78 prix fixe menu. Which test recipe didn’t make the cut? Deciding on one single dish is pretty much an eeny meeny miny mo situation, especially since our clueless waiter wasn’t much help. As we suspected, a couple of the dishes were solid, others mediocre. Why not define yourself through six or seven superb dishes as opposed to making people go fish through 25 different options? Overall, the plates put in front of us didn’t measure up to the standards that go along with a menu priced this way. Next time we’re flossing it out Meatpacking District style, we’re spending that extra $20 on Del Posto’s lower end tasting menu and leaving room for a tap room, duck rigatoni night cap.
Food Rundown:
Tap Room:
Warm Octopus and Potato SaladOctopus and potatoes cut into small-ish chunks. Nothing spectacular, but the paprika and capers give it a nice flavor.
PizzetteOnion, fontina cheese, rosemary and potato sprinkled a light, fluffy dough. We enjoyed this little appetizer pizza.
Quail with FarroHonestly, we expected more out of this. The bird was bland and a little on the dry side. We had wanted to order the roasted clams with pork shoulder and fresno chile instead, but they were out of it. That would have been a better move.
Baked Rigatoni with DuckThis right here is completely off the chain, one of the best things we’ve eaten so far this year. There is something special going on between the rigatoni, duck and cavalo nero and your mouth needs in on this action stat. Btw, it’s completely appropriate to order three of this.
Skirt Steak with ChimichurriEd Levine got me all fired up about the steak, so I went in with extremely high expectations. I love a nicely charred, medium rare skirt as much as anyone, but I wasn’t overly impressed with this one. Yes, it had excellent flavor, was dripping wet with meat juices and cooked just right, but for me it was missing that little extra something to take it from “yeah this is a good steak” to “holy shit this is amazing.” Gnocchi with Chestnuts After experience the baked duck rigatoni in the tap room, we expected the rest of the pasta to be cut from the same cloth. This wasn’t even half as good. Even bone marrow and black truffle couldn’t save this. To quote our dining companion Jason from Forking Tasty, “this gnocchi tastes like my grandmothers before she puts all the flavor in.”
Squid with Cavalo NeroEh, this sounded so much better than it tasted. The squid arrives over a bed of cavalo nero (black kale) risotto. It didn’t have much flavor and the squid was a little tough. Skip.
White Bean AgnolottiAgnolotti with chorizo, pork belly and octopus? Yes please. Unfortunately, besides the octopus being particularly tender, this dish just wasn’t very memorable. Once again, the description > taste.
Spice Roasted Lola DuckThe whole spice roasted billing had us feeling good about this order, but it didn’t deliver as much flavor as expected. It’s not like this duck sucked, it just wasn’t amazing.
Pancetta-Wrapped MonkfishThe best dish we tasted all night. Buttery monkfish wrapped in a thin layer of pig and served with a couple delicious flavors: braised red cabbage and black truffle vinaigrette.
Braised Loup De MerAlthough the waiter highly recommended this, everyone at the table felt this was a little all over the place. The white fish was kinda plain and boring. I’m not sure what the roasted tomato brought to this besides a layer of mush. The sweet and sour shallots were nice, and the pork trotter layer on top looked good, but didn’t do much to enhance the dish.
Roasted SirloinWe pleaded with our waiter to let us order one additional dish a la carte, and although they aren’t set up for that – which became even more apparent when the bill showed up with an extra full prix fixe meal on it – they were willing to accommodate. $44 bucks for this roasted sirloin with bacon and black garlic, which is a little insane especially considering the same dish was only $36 two weeks ago, before C&S switched to prix fixe only. While the steak was tender, juicy and flavorful and chunks of bacon are always a nice touch, I’d rather drop $44 on a real man’s steak at Keen’s. These three small slices of sirloin were gone in about five seconds.
DessertsEven though doughnuts are played these days, we ordered the Coconut Cream Doughnuts off the dessert menu just because they were made with something called limequat marmalade. A good move on our part, as they were easily the best dessert on the table. The Beignets with bourbon panna cotta were reasonable too, but the Banana-Pecan Upside-Down item tasted like dry banana bread with ice cream. The doughnuts are they way to go.
Dining Room:
try instead
Gramercy Tavern
Flatiron,
NY
Blue Hill New York
Greenwich Village,
NY
Ai Fiori
Midtown,
NY
Del Posto
Chelsea,
NY
Marc Forgione
Tribeca,
NY
