Restaurant Review: Ci Siamo New York

1 day ago
5 min read

★★★½☆ 3.5/5, Good

Ci Siamo is a serious restaurant. The kitchen is organized around live fire, house made pasta, seasonal vegetables and a substantial Italian wine program. The current menu is broad, polished and technically ambitious without becoming completely detached from Italian cooking.

But Ci Siamo also has a problem. It is very good at being a New York restaurant. Sometimes better than it is at being an Italian one. That distinction matters.

The cooking is attractive, modern and confident. The pasta program is strong. The service has an excellent public reputation. The wine list is intelligent. But the menu regularly stretches beyond a disciplined Italian identity. Not disastrously. Just enough to keep the restaurant at three and a half stars rather than four.

Italian Identity

★★★½☆ 3.5/5

This is the provisional maximum. Ci Siamo has a recognizable Italian structure and a credible culinary foundation. The current menu includes Mortadella con Pistacchio, Tuna Tonnato, Gnocco Fritto, Tagliatelle, Rigatoni alla Gricia, Stracci with Rabbit, Cavatelli allo Scoglio and Bistecca alla Fiorentina. That is a serious base.

The restaurant also understands something important. Italian cooking does not require excessive decoration. Live fire, pasta, vegetables, olive oil, cheese, cured meat and properly handled seafood can already build a complete restaurant.

But the menu occasionally becomes too international in spirit. Goat gouda with gnocco fritto, schmaltz with roasted chicken, caraway in a Milanese preparation, bulgur and feta in vegetable dishes. None of these ingredients is inherently wrong. But each one moves the restaurant slightly farther away from a coherent Italian language. Three and a half. Good identity, but not pure enough for more.

Antipasti

★★★★☆ 4.0/5

The antipasti are one of the strongest sections. Caramelized Onion Torta with balsamic and pecorino Toscano has become one of the restaurant’s most recognizable dishes, and the concept is strong. Sweetness, acidity, fat, pastry and cheese. It is rich, but coherent.

Tuna Tonnato is another interesting choice because it takes a familiar Italian idea and uses it in a way that still feels connected to the original logic. Mortadella con Pistacchio is simpler and probably more important than it looks. The restaurant does not need every dish to become a composition. Sometimes good mortadella is enough. Four stars. Very good.

Pasta

★★★★☆ 4.0/5

This is the main culinary reason to come. The current pasta program is compact but serious. Rigatoni alla Gricia with guanciale and black pepper is the obvious benchmark. A dish like gricia exposes everything: pasta texture, rendered fat, salt, pepper and emulsion. There is nowhere to hide.

Stracci with Rabbit, Wine and Parmigiano is more distinctive and shows a stronger regional instinct. Tagliatelle with Tomato and Buffalo Butter is simple enough that technical execution becomes crucial. Cavatelli allo Scoglio moves toward seafood, chili and vermouth without completely losing Italian structure. Four stars. Very good pasta program. Not four and a half because the restaurant still feels more polished than profound.

Secondi

★★★½☆ 3.5/5

The secondi are strong enough to matter. Wood Fired Whole Trout with pine nuts and mustard greens fits the live fire philosophy well. Olive Oil Poached Orata also makes sense. Bistecca alla Fiorentina provides a clear Italian reference point.

The meat side becomes less convincing when the restaurant drifts into broader contemporary restaurant language. That is where dishes can begin to feel less specifically Italian and more generally fashionable. Three and a half. Good.

Desserts

★★★½☆ 3.5/5

Dessert is better than average here. The current menu includes Lemon Torta, Bomboloni, Baba al Rum, Tartufo, gelati and sorbetti. That is a coherent enough finish to the meal. The restaurant also understands that dessert should have personality rather than simply ending with tiramisù because every Italian restaurant is expected to have one. Three and a half. Good.

Service

★★★★☆ 4.0/5

Service is a genuine strength. Recent diner evidence is consistently positive: friendly, attentive and professional. Importantly, there is also evidence that guests are not routinely rushed even during late seatings. That matters.

Ci Siamo is a high volume restaurant inside a major hospitality group. The danger in that environment is mechanical service. The restaurant appears to avoid that better than many others. Four stars. Very good.

Atmosphere

★★★½☆ 3.5/5

The room is large, polished and carefully designed. It works. But this is not a small neighborhood trattoria. Nor is it trying to be. The restaurant feels contemporary, spacious and professionally engineered. That makes it comfortable. It also makes the experience slightly less personal. The live fire component gives the room some identity, and the terrace and large windows help prevent it from feeling corporate. Three and a half.

Wine Program

★★★★½ 4.5/5

This may be the restaurant’s strongest category. The wine list takes Italy seriously. Not just the famous regions. By the glass selections include Verdicchio di Matelica, Arneis, Carricante, Ciliegiolo, Nero d’Avola, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and Barolo.

That is exactly what we want. A serious Italian wine program should teach people that Italy is much larger than Pinot Grigio, Chianti and Prosecco. Ci Siamo does that. Four and a half. Excellent program.

Value

★★★☆☆ 3.0/5

The pricing is not outrageous by current Manhattan standards, but it is not cheap. Antipasti often approach or exceed twenty dollars. Pasta generally sits between the mid twenties and mid thirties. Secondi can reach forty dollars or more. The Bistecca alla Fiorentina can move into luxury territory quickly.

The pricing is easier to defend here than at many restaurants because the technique, service and wine program are substantial. Still, value is only sufficient. Three stars.

What We Would Order

Caramelized Onion Torta. Mortadella con Pistacchio. Rigatoni alla Gricia. Stracci with Rabbit. Then either the Whole Trout or the Orata. Finish with Baba al Rum or Lemon Torta. And spend money on the wine rather than ordering too much food. That is where Ci Siamo is most convincing.

What We Would Skip

The dishes where the Italian structure becomes unnecessarily complicated by outside references. Anything that feels like the kitchen is adding ingredients simply because it can. The restaurant does not need to prove that it is contemporary. The technique already does that.

The Central Problem

Ci Siamo is close to being a four star restaurant. Very close. The pasta is strong. The wine program is excellent. The service is very good. The kitchen has a clear technical identity built around fire and seasonality.

The problem is editorial discipline. The restaurant should trust Italy more. When the cooking stays close to gricia, rabbit, trout, tonnato, mortadella and straightforward vegetable preparations, it becomes much more convincing. When the menu begins borrowing from several culinary languages at once, the identity weakens.

That is the difference between a very good contemporary restaurant and a truly great Italian restaurant. Ci Siamo is currently the first one. Not yet the second.

Zafferano & Co. Scorecard

Italian Identity: 3.5/5

Food Quality: 4.0/5

Technical Execution: 4.0/5

Menu Consistency: 3.5/5

Originality Without Distortion: 3.5/5

Service: 4.0/5

Wine Program: 4.5/5

Atmosphere: 3.5/5

Value: 3.0/5

Would We Return?: 4.0/5

Final Rating

★★★½☆ 3.5/5, Good

Ci Siamo is one of the stronger contemporary Italian restaurants in New York. The pasta is serious. The wine program is excellent. The service is strong. The live fire cooking gives the restaurant a real point of view.

But the kitchen occasionally reaches too far outside the Italian vocabulary and loses some coherence. Good restaurant. Very strong program. Not quite four stars.