Via Carota

Via Carota is the restaurant two West Village restaurateurs made together. Jody Williams, from California, had Buvette, a narrow French gastrothèque. Rita Sodi, who grew up near Florence and once worked as an executive at Calvin Klein Jeans, had I Sodi around the corner. After they became a couple, they opened a third place on Grove Street, quietly, in November 2014. The name is an old address of Sodi's in Italy, and translates as Carrot Street.

Hannah Goldfield, writing in The New Yorker, called it 'a restaurant person's restaurant', the answer eight or nine times out of ten when people in the business are asked where they actually want to eat. Pete Wells gave it two stars early on and praised its 'deeply appealing food, without mugging'.

Pete Wells gave it two stars early on and praised its 'deeply appealing food, without mugging'.

Order the things that sound plain. The insalata verde, a tall stack of butterhead, frisée and endive in a shallot-heavy sherry vinaigrette, is the one people photograph and then cannot stop ordering. The cacio e pepe came over from I Sodi. The svizzerina, hand-chopped steak griddled to a crust, arrives with a whole head of roasted garlic. Start with an Americano in one of the very thin tumblers, and the free Castelvetrano olives.

The room feels lived in because much of it was: objects from Williams's and Sodi's own homes, a menu printed like a broadsheet and tucked into the backs of old chapel chairs. Regulars go early. One writer The New Yorker spoke to likes the bar at about five with a newspaper. That is still the move, and it makes for a very good long lunch on a wet day.

Text to ask.