Son's Day at Colicchio & Sons

Tucked away at the bar of the wood-hued Tap Room of Colicchio and Sons today, my own Son and I were the only spring break refugees in the business lunch crowd. The room is contemporary, light-filled and warm, and the selection of beer on tap is impressive. The two women next to us weren’t interested; they were sipping soft drinks and burning holes in the keypads of their BlackBerries between courses of kale and white bean soup and salads.


What we ate: Fresh ricotta with roasted fennel, carrots, and cipollini onions drizzled with truffle honey; a leg of lam sandwich with roasted eggplant and black olive tapenade, and baked rigatoni with duck and cavalo nero (dark-green Tuscan kale). This is a kale kind of place, earthy, robust and masculine.

The ricotta dish, which we overheard referred to as burrata (it looked at tasted like burrata), was a perfect balance of creamy, woodsy and sweet, and the lamb was rare and herbaceous. Our server, Brent, whose other job is creating tv series, told us we’d ordered two of the most popular dishes in the room, the ricotta and the rigatoni (less of a knock-out but still rich and warming). Oddly, he said, though the pizzas are popular, not many customers order the burger with balsamic onions, pecorino and chips (which he assured us was as stand-out).

The adjacent dining room is open for dinner only, and features much more elaborate tasting and a la carte menus.

Coliccio and Sons, 85 Tenth Avenue, Chelsea, New York, 10011. (212) 352-1690