Pepe Rosso — Restaurant in New York

TL;DR Staff is passive aggressive... order was sabotaged. I will no longer visit this establishment.

I've been coming to Pepe Rosso to go for years (since they were at their much smaller location across the street.

I walked in to place a take out order and was asked what I wanted. Me, "Just a chicken parmigian with penne". To which I got a snarky reply, "Just? Just? I mean it's more than just chicken parmigian and penne...".

In my defense the word "just" was not a comment on the size of the dish but to be efficient and avoid the next question I usually get which is, "would you like anything else with that?". No that's all I am order because I JUST want the chicken pargmigian. Regardless the snark alone is nothing to get upset over...

So I told them that I would be sitting outside waiting for my order.

I go sit outside and I'm watching the pass and I see a take out order appear 10 minutes later. I watch the person who took my order walk over to it, look at it, and walk away. I'm assuming that it was not my order. Another 10 minutes go by and a second take out order appears. That one must be mine so I walk in and the server looks at me and looks at the pass and picks up the FIRST order (from 10 minutes earlier) and hands it to me.

The cherry on he cake is when I got home and opened my cold chicken parm to find it burned with black char on both ends.

Edit: I will gladly provide receipts to prove the legitimacy of my review. Also this stomach ache I’m feeling this morning...

We had a very weird experience here. We ordered two pastas and they were taking a very long time. There were two dishes of pasta on the counter and the waiters went to view them, look at the ticket and walk away multiple times. After around 20 minutes and the 6th check the waiter brought them to us. They were cold and he offered to reheat them, which was cool with us. Although, he disputed the fact that they were cold. They came back quite quickly and still lukewarm, but we ate them anyway because it had been around an hour since we ordered. They tasted OK. Quite bland and a lack of any flavour. Whilst we were finishing, we found chunks of plastic in the food. We showed one waiter and he looked guilty and laughed and walked away without saying anything. We showed a second waiter and told him it was probably food packaging. His reply was this, "it's not food packaging. It's what they wrapped the food in." I found this quite funny, but also quite confusing. They charged us in full and we didn't leave a tip. This is the first time in my life that I didn't leave a tip. I didn't argue about the price because the man seemed quite unhinged already and I didn't want to push him...

THE BEST PASTA EVER. FYI the aranchiata drink isn't made by them, but it's just the can of sanpelligrino. Haha.. for others who might make that mistake..like me.

I had the Rigatoni Prosciutto de parma (arugula with pink sauce). I enjoyed the pasta and the sauce, but the prosciutto was super super salty. I definitely liked the Penne Vodka with pancetta more though. Both the sauces were magnificent cooked to perfection. I want to definitely try more items on this menu.

I felt horrible with my large group of friends taking up the entire restaurant though. We definitely got some glares from the staff. They give you free bread as well as free refills of the bread. Along the wall there is olive oil that you dip the bread in. Add as much or as little as you'd like. I enjoy the freedom you have in this place. Pasta doesn't always have to be in a high class fancy restaurant, that's why I enjoy it here! Woo!

The spaghetti bolognese was pretty tasty too, though I think everyone should at least try something not as normal as that dish! Try something new, excite your taste...