Maybe it’s because summer is ending, but I’ve been wild about going to restaurants with outdoor seating. Rosemary’s doesn’t have outdoor *eating* but it does have outdoor *seating*.
The restaurant harvests a number of vegetables from its quaint west village roof, which is open to diners.
You reach it via this fancy staircase.
There are nice benches in front of a row of marigolds and funny chicken shaped pots. You can sit there and gossip about the travails of life, or just chill and watch the eggplants grow.
Is that a massive okra? It was longer than my forearm.
Downstairs in the main dining area, the space is wide open and dotted with incandescent lights.
I recommend the cheese… but get the selection of 3 cheeses with the ricotta, not the mozzarella and burrata appetizer.
All of their pastas are excellent. It’s a great neighborhood type place where they don’t overdo the sauce and give you plenty of pasta.
Bucatini
Spaghetti Puttanesca
We also had the seared tuna that day, which was fresh and lightly grilled. It was paired with about 5 different kinds of tomatoes that were perfectly sweet and tangy. There were even these dehydrated tomato chips that tasted like half a tomato condensed into a crazy tomato-listerine strip. It’s better than I make it sound.
If you’re in west village and not in the mood for a frou frou affair, bypass l’Artusi and Perla (which are both great restaurants), and get down and dirty with Rosemary’s because they’re just trying to feed you here. Leave your snobbery at the door.