Do good, cheap Italian restaurants exist?
Posted by Ed Levine, May 17, 2006 at 1:30 PM I started thinking about this last week. Everyone loves the idea of a good, cheap neighborhood Italian restaurant, and we all like to believe we have one in our midst. But most often the neighborhood Italian restaurant we claim as our own really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Either the ingredients used are sub-standard or the cooking is sloppy or the service is lousy. And just because the owner smiles at you and tries to make you feel at home doesn’t make it a good restaurant. But I do have one on the Upper West Side: Celeste. At Celeste the frying is deftly done, more than creditable Neapolitan pizzas come out of the woodburning oven, pastas are properly al dente and lightly sauced, and salads are made with good ingredients, especially given the modest prices. And they have one of the best Italian cheese courses in the city, thanks to the obsessive cheesemongering of Carmine, one of the owners. –>Celeste’s executive chef and co-owner Gianca
