I know Carmine’s is often scoffed at as being a giant tourist trap, but I can’t get over how good the food is considering how many people the restaurant serves every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s a weekday or the weekend, early or late, both the midtown and uptown locations are always packed. We were at the uptown location early on a Wednesday night in honor of our friend’s birthday and the restaurant was still surprisingly full. Luckily we were only a small party so we were able to nab seats right away.
The food at Carmine’s is served family style. Portions are huge and one order can serve at least six people. When you have a large group, it’s nice to order a few different things and then everyone can get a taste of each item. It’s a classic red sauce Italian joint, serving up pasta, parmigiana, marsala, and all the other standard fare.
I absolutely love the bread basket here. It comes with breadsticks, standard rustic Italian bread, onion focaccia, and best of all, the tomato focaccia, which I’ve dubbed “pizza bread”. I can eat piece after piece of the pizza bread and not get full. Whenever I’m at the restaurant, I’ll ask the waiter to just bring me a plate of pizza bread and they always happily oblige. I crave this bread all the time and always look forward to my next visit just so I can have more of it. It’s seriously that good.
Basket full of delicious carbs
We started out with an order of the night’s special salad, which was romaine topped with grilled vegetables and ricotta salata. This salad is ginormous, and you definitely need a fork and a knife to eat it. There are huge pieces of roasted peppers, tomatoes, string beans, carrots, mushrooms, onions, and olives, and the whole thing is covered with grated ricotta salata. It’s tossed with Italian dressing and it’s a perfect combination of salty, sweet, and tangy.
Salad special with roasted vegetables and ricotta salata
An order of veal marsala comes covered in mushrooms and marsala sauce. The veal is pounded super thin and is cooked perfectly tender. I’m not the hugest fan of the marsala sauce though, as it’s a bit too rich and buttery for my taste. It needs just a bit more acid to cut through the richness and give it some more flavor.
Veal marsala
The chicken scarpariello is the best chicken scarpariello we’ve had anywhere. It’s not the heavy dish weighed down by sausage and peppers that you get at a lot of other Italian restaurants. This chicken is light, lemony, and super garlicky. There is also rosemary in sauce, which gives it a nice woodsy aroma. They must deep fry the large pieces of bone-in chicken because it is always super juicy and moist on the inside while the skin is beautifully brown and crisp on the outside. When there are a lot of us, we always break our rule of ordering all different things and get two dishes of this scarpariello because everyone always wants multiple pieces of chicken.
The best chicken scarpariello
For our pasta dish, we got an order of linguini bolognese, which was piled high with thick and rich meat sauce. Unfortunately, the sauce was over seasoned and way too salty. I have a high tolerance for salt and my mouth started puckering after a few bites.
Too salty linguini bolognese
We flagged down our waiter and traded the dish in for cheese ravioli with meat sauce. The meat sauce, which is not as thick and meaty as the bolognese sauce, was still rich and tangy, and at least it was appropriately seasoned. The raviolis were huge and filled with a soft ricotta cheese.
Cheese ravioli with meat sauce
We also got a side order of spinach, which is simply sauteed in olive oil with garlic. A squeeze of lemon over the top completes the dish.
Sauteed spinach with garlic
In honor of the birthday girl, we got a half order of the Titanic dessert, which is basically a huge banana split with chocolate cake. The half order is laughably huge, which makes the full order just borderline ridiculous. It’s a dense chocolate cake covered in chocolate and vanilla ice cream, bananas, and whipped cream. It’s rich and decadent but refreshing at the same time.
Half a Titanic dessert
I absolutely love Carmine’s because the food is not fussy and the atmosphere is always festive. It’s a great place for large groups, and the family style eating makes it a good value as well. They serve Italian comfort food at its very best. I’m always astonished that the restaurant turns out consistently delicious food that is always cooked perfectly. They must make hundreds of pounds of pasta every day, and it’s always al dente. Aside from the over seasoned bolognese sauce, I’ve never had a bad dish there, and we’ve been going several times a year for over 10 years. Their stuffed artichoke appetizer is the best stuffed artichoke I’ve ever eaten, and their fried calamari is tops as well. It’s easier to get in at the uptown location, as there’s usually always a long wait at the one in the theater district. I absolutely can’t wait for our next visit, and a chance to eat more pizza bread!
Carmine’s (multiple locations)
2450 Broadway between 90th and 91st St.
New York, NY
Tags: Italian, Upper West Side