Il Buco Alimentari & Vineria — Restaurant in New York

I'd strongly advise to all who rated this place 5 stars to take a trip to Italy and train their palate. The place isn't terrible, it's decent at best. Most definitely no stunner. The plates lack creativity as well as tradition. The bread basket is good and the olive oil is also of good quality, but that's where everything stopped to be ok/above average.

Fried artichokes: not impressing. A traditional Sicilian dish calls for batter. These were simply artichoke hearts dumped in a deep frier. While flavor was acceptable, it was a shame having to taste the fried oil in the external leaves.

Octopus appetizer: with 3 small tentacles, 3 "marble-sized" potatoes, 1 olive. it makes for a quite overpriced dish. The tasteless squid ink was an unnecessary addition.

The Insalata was very inconvenient to eat since to please the eye and emphasize on presentation, someone thought it'd be OK to serve full, uncut radicchio and endive leaves on a plate rather than chopping and serving them in a bowl, a formula sure to yield high annoyance and low satisfaction. Thankfully the taste wasn't bad, although just about what expected from a decent restaurant worth its salt (no pun). The seasoning was simple but tasteful: lemon juice, goat cheese, pomegranate, and pistachios (though it wasn't there you wouldn't even notice). The addition of 2 "read two", peeled orange slices was no sensation. Labour that could be safely avoided as it didn't add to the plate. If anything dried figs would likely have been a better option to contrast the goat cheese.

The beet gnocchi were dry. Nothing in the dish stood out. Can't taste the beets nor the leeks. The ricotta salata and a mild buttery taste was all that came to the palate via the insufficient amount of sauce at the bottom of thIs small sized dish. The gnocchi themselves are a bit on the hard side, they didn't "melt in your mouth" as good gnocchi should. A rather disappointing first course.

I had the chance to taste a "special addition to the dinner menu", introduced (by our good waiter whose name escapes me) as a filet of cod with skin. Regrettably that second course didn't redeem the disappointment from the first. The downwards trend continued.

Aside from being a sad looking entree (albeit more in size than presentation), it truly looked like it was trying too hard to be one of those upscale restaurant (River Café et sim.) where you get served a "cauliflower pannacotta" the size of a soda bottle cap as a "pre-appetizer" (the appetizer isn't going to be much larger either). By the way, don't breathe too heavily, or your will risk inhaling it by accident!

Back to il Buco's dining experience: the Cod wasn't cooked through as the inner flesh of the small chunk of filet was distinctively undercooked as was evident by both texture and flavor. At over 30-something bucks (can't tell exact cost as I was treated) the dish wasn't worth the price tag in any way shape of form. The flavor was nothing to write home about and the squid ink used for "garnish" was like it wasn't even there. Perhaps a good mistake since it had no place in the dish to begin with. Would have been so much more enjoyable if it was cooked thoroughly and seasoned in simple salt, pepper, lemon and a drizzle of fresh extra virgin olive oil. A sad waste of a potentially good small chunk of cod filet.

We also tried a side dish, the fried polenta served with Parmesan cheese. While it's crispy and tastes like polenta (albeit on the "grainy" side), it lacked in flavor. You'd be better off ordering more bread for a couple bucks than this unwarrantedly overpriced contorno dish. If I had to suggest a change I'd add salted butter and crushed toasted almonds to the polenta mix just to avoid making this contorno taste so overwhelmingly all about corn. It would also be a good idea to add parmesan to the polenta mix rather than sprinkle it over it.

Generally overpriced, decor is OK, service is a tad overzealous. Common table seats are awful. Patrons are far too loud, but what's worse is that owners enforce no etiquette....

Ok, here’s what happened. We walked in to scope the place out. The hostess didn’t greet us. After a moment or two I asked if we should seat ourselves. She replied, “nope, that’s what I’m here for.” At this point, it was less than a warm greeting, but no harm done. We ordered drinks when our waitress first visited us. She returned within a minute or two with our drinks and as we were placing our order she spilt them both. It was quite the spill. The entire table, my wife’s outfit, her purse, there was beer everywhere. Of course, this happens and is no one’s fault. It’s what happened next that deserves the 1 star review. My wife went into the restaurant (we were on the patio) and asked for a wet soapy cloth to clean up which they accommodated, but there was a lack of support as they seemed annoyed at the request. The waitress went out side to clean up and disappeared. The manager then followed and said, “that was an accident”…. Of course it was, why would that need to be clarified? He then asked if we needed anything and I requested a beer to replace the one that had spilled. He promptly replaced it. Then things got weird. After disappearing, our waitress reappeared and instead of picking up where she left off by taking our ordered, she ignored us, and started to serve other new guests. As she walked past us, she avoided eye contact. As the awkwardness of her behaviour grew as she continued to ignore us, we gave her a chance to take our order and after a while, we decided to just leave. Spilling drinks happens; it’s not a problem. But to ignore us afterwards was an incredibly awkward experience. The food looked good, but this waitress was lost and the manager could have intervened but also seemed annoyed. Very...

I don't like to be too liberal with my 5 star reviews but my experience dining at Il Buco Alimentari last night was a 5 star experience for my friend and me, so 5 stars it will be.

First of all, even if you don't want to have a full dinner, the most perfect 5 star experience here is to meet a friend for a drink and order a plate of the fried artichokes appetizer. They are not breaded, they are simply pared down of their husk-like outer leaves and left with the more tender inner leaves and the heart. These are then deep fried and served with a sprinkle of parsley and fresh lemon wedges. They might be one of my top ten favorite bar snacks. The tender leaves become like artichoke chips in the frier and then you get to the delicious heart at the center. Definitely a top ten bar snack.

After our delicious artichoke experience, we moved on to dinner. I ordered the Bottarga Spaghettini with peperoncino, parsley and lemon. The pasta was perfectly cooked, the bottarga, dare I say, is a superior understudy of Parmesan Reggiano. It is shaved on top of the pasta, just as Parmesan would be but it doesn't melt so provides texture and the same amount of saltiness but with a very subtle fishy flavor augmented by the pepperoncino for a minimal kick of spice. It was a perfect plate of food.

We were quite full after the appetizer and the pasta since we basically licked our plates, so we just ordered two fruity sorbets - strawberry and mango. It was the perfect finish without putting us over the top so we could still enjoy a nice stroll home on a beautiful night without having to be rolled down the street. If you ever want to meet a friend for a drink, stop by for a plate of fried artichokes to share and you will be very pleased...