I consider myself a Rome expert. I spent a summer there in law school, and my husband and I have since visited countless times in every season. One of our favorite restaurants in Rome, Roscioli Salumeria con Cucina (or just “Roscioli”), opened a location in New York last year – its first outside of Rome. I anxiously awaited a meal here and finally secured a lunch reservation on the same day I was recognized as an Italian citizen. Perfetto! This post reviews my lunch at Roscioli New York City.

Here is a pic of me and Dan in front of the Italian Consulate in New York before my swearing in ceremony on June 14, 2024 (literally six years in the making)!

Setting aside my own personal victories, let’s discuss Roscioli New York City! Roscioli New York City opened in July 2023 in New York’s West Village (at 43 MacDougal Street to be exact). While this is New York’s first Roscioli operation, the Roscioli brand has been in Italy since at least the 1970s and has run its well-known and, quite frankly, beloved, restaurant, Salumeria Roscioli, in Rome for 20 years. Prior to New York, the Roscioli brand had already expanded to a second, wine focused space in Rome, Roscioli Rimessa (where I spent this New Year’s Eve), runs an wine club shipping around the globe (of which I was a member for years) and opened a Roman cafe that I have (sadly) never visited.  The New York location is yet another expansion of the business, this time outside of Rome and all the way across the Atlantic. In any case, I was very excited for lunch and had high expectations.

Roscioli New York City! This entrance was reminiscent of the Salumeria Roscioli entrance in Rome.

Roscioli New York City is split into two spaces. The street level is a “casual” restaurant and alimentari (or “food store” (kind of like a bodega in NYC) in Italian). It is a cute space, albeit small, where guests sit amongst the food for sale (all imported from Italy) and view the open air kitchen. The Alimentari, as I will call it, is where lunch is served and, while its listed as “a la carte” online, only a 3 course tasting menu for $55 was offered on our visit.

The Alimentari at lunch (well, after lunch, we were the last to leave).

The cheese counter and kitchen.

Our lunch table.

Our table for three was he above cute little table. We were promptly brought the menu and really great bread with two olive oils. As mentioned, the menu is three savory courses for $55 USD per person. Not bad at all for New York. There were a few optional additions, including dessert.

Lunch menu in June 2024.

Bread and two types of olive oil.

This bread, made with juicy figs, stole the show.

We also perused the lunch wine list, but ended up asking for the proper wine menu for the restaurant. We ordered a Sagrantino de Montefalco for our celebration. It was fantastic, as is Sagrantino always.

The paltry lunch wine list. As for the main menu.

Our Sagrantino di Montefalco!

FIRST COURSES

For food, we all began with the Burrata and sun-dried tomatoes from Puglia (read about Puglia here), which was served with a bit of crisp bread for eating the Burrata. This dish was fantastic. The photos do not do it justice. We also upgraded and ordered the “cured meat of the day” with Focaccia. I honestly mis-ordered here, as I thought it was a $14 addition to get this in lieu of one of the three starters, but it was a whole extra course for the table. We all eat salami, so this was no big deal, although we did not need this much food, ha!

Burrata with Puglian sun dried tomatoes.

Cured meat of the day.

SECOND COURSE

As a second course, my husband ordered the famous Fried Artichokes, which is a lightly fried artichoke with coarse sea salt. This dish, called a Jewish Fried Artichoke in Rome (this is the traditional, and honestly better, style of preparing the dish – the other is Roman style in tomato sauce), is totally famous when in season in Rome, and honestly difficult to find a good one in New York. I do not love this dish (shocker, I know), but Dan was very happy with it! I ordered supplì alla mortadella, which is another famous Roman dish (and I had a great one at Roscioli’s pizza shop in Rome). This supplì was fried perfectly, stuffed with rice, tomato sauce, mortadella (one of my favorites) and cheese, and topped with grated Pecorino. Very, very good!

Dan’s  Fried Artichoke.

My supplì alla mortadella.

THIRD COURSE

The third course was, what else, Roman pasta! Rome has four traditional types of pasta – Carbonara, Amatriciana, Cacio e pepe, and Gricia, and Roscioli New Yokr offers 3 of the 4. Dan’s Aunt and I both ordered the Amatriciana, which, at least here, was a pasta prepared in the Amatriciana sauce with Guanciale pork and grated Pecorinio cheese and black pepper. We found this to be really great – by far the best Amatriciana I have had outside of Rome. Dan took the Carbonara, which is similar to the Amatriciana but prepared in a white, eggy sauce. He also really enjoyed his meal.

Amatriciana.

Carbonara.

FOURTH COURSE

We added one dessert for the table to our lunch, as we were stuffed but it was a special ocassion. We opted for the Parmigiano Reggiano ice cream with Balsamic vinegar. I love cheese flavored ice cream (well, really anything) and this was fantastic.

Parmigiano Reggiano ice cream with Balsamic.

We left satisfied with our meal – a small taste of Italy and Italian citizenship. Keep reading for a recent review of Roscioli Salumeria in Rome on Friday!

STEAL OUR DINNER

Roscioli NYC: 43 MacDougal St, New York, NY 10012. Open 12 PM – 2PM and 5 PM – 11 PM Tuesday – Sunday, dinner only on Monday.