Bottega Del Vino

You could be excused for thinking that Bottega Del Vino, with its shelves full of wine, hand-blown crystal stemware, and glass walls forged from wine bottles, was a very adult restaurant. And indeed its owner, Severino Barzan, prides himself on his 130,000 bottle collection. (He was the 2004 recipient of Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence.) But when I visited the restaurant for lunch yesterday, I sat next to an Italian family of eight with three young children. The mother asked for "un po' di prosciutto" and soon her youngsters were happily munching on a big plate of ham and cheese (when they weren't throwing their spoons on the floor).

I'm not sure what else the family ate, because I was thoroughly engrossed in my own meal. I'd ordered some of the daily specials; my appetizer was a poached duck egg, its yolk spilling out into a velvety beige bed of pureed fava beans. Smoked tuna carpaccio livened up the mild dish, as did a basket of oregano-sprinkled focaccia.

No sooner had I scooped up the last bit of beans when the server brought my cacio e pepe. (If you like cheese, this pasta dish is impossible to resist. There's even a restaurant named after it in the East Village. At Cacio e Pepe, the server brings by a giant wheel of pecorino and swirls the tonnarelli around and around in it before depositing it on the plate. But although I enjoy the presentation, I never feel like I got quite enough pasta!) The version at Bottega Del Vino was made with thick, rigatoni-like tubes, which caught every melted mouthful of sheep's milk cheese and smidgen of black peppercorn. I actually couldn't finish the dish, much as I wanted to. And I didn't have room for dessert, which was a shame, as I hear that pastry chef Annamaria Kosa whips up some pretty special sweets, among them buffalo ricotta cake with raspberry compote, apple fig strudel and white chocolate semifreddo with caramelized chestnuts in rum sauce. For Easter, Kosa has created a watermelon-sized, hollow chocolate Easter egg into which you can hide a gift. Children from 1-100 can enjoy it!

(There is a very important reason why you should end a meal at Bottega Del Vino not with an espresso, but a cappuccino. It's so important that it merits its own post.)

Bottega Del Vino: 7 East 59th St., (212) 223-2724.