Lupa

170 Thompson St., Greenwich Village, NY

7.5

map & more

Neighborhood
Greenwich Village

Cuisine
Italian

Nearby
Blue Note
Le Poisson Rouge

212-982-5089

Official Website

By Chris Stang
December 8, 2010

Did you know that Affliction makes blazers? Well they do. We saw one at Lupa. On a real person. I suppose just in case you need to dress up that mixed martial arts look you’ve got going on.

At this point, you either know, or shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Mario Batali restaurants can be tourist traps. Each of his establishments has a slightly different specific type of alien clientele, and Lupa apparently attracts the kind of guy that wears his finest sport coat to dinner – the one with a cobra on it. We’ve spent a handful of nights in this staple of the Batali empire, and every single time we go, we can’t help but enjoy observing the crowd that gathers here. Lots of hair gel and high heels for a night out in Greenwich Village.

But even despite plenty of hilarious reasons not to like it, we have to admit that the food at Lupa is pretty damn good. Everything on the menu is simple – familiar Roman/Italian dishes that contain no more than a few key ingredients (and loads of black pepper). The fish selections are particularly good, and there is occasionally a pasta special with pork shoulder that should be ordered at any opportunity. We can’t say that this is a place that we will ever have in heavy rotation, but keep Lupa in your back pocket for when you’re in need of a solid meal in a neighborhood with so many random restaurants. Lupa is also particularly good at hosting large groups, so take that into consideration next time you are planning a big group dinner where you will still only talk to the three people sitting near you. Fun!

Food Rundown:

Antipasti
Make sure to hit the carne section and get a variety of the house cured meats that Lupa offers. The coppa and the speck are both awesome.

Bavette Cacio & Pepe
This is essentially linguine with black pepper and romano cheese. It’s simple and very good, but only if you love the taste of black pepper. They go heavy on the stuff for this dish.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara
A traditional carbonara, this is another one that’s great because it’s simple. Also, crispy pork jowl makes things delicious.

Pork Shoulder Pasta Special
We doubt it was Batali himself that came up with this special, but we’re going to imagine it was so that we can forgive him for creating Eataly. That place scares us. This is essentially a bowl of delicious pasta, made even more delicious by the presence of pork shoulder and it’s fat. There are some greens in there (for some reason I am sure) and it makes for one hell of a special. Order it if you can.

Pollo Al Diavolo
People love this spicy classic Italian dish, but after a while, all I could taste was burning from the black pepper. I suppose that’s the point, but the chicken doesn’t taste like much after a while. Nor does anything else really.

Market Fish
We like all of the fish options that Lupa has to offer, but have had especially good luck with the Market Fish on any particular visit. It’s guaranteed to be fresh and have some seasonally appropriate things on the plate.