Barbuto: A Paradigm for Italian Eateries
Hello! Today, we're going to talk about Jonathan Waxman's Barbuto. I ate here with my friend, Jen. You can check out her site here. Anyway, this place is PHENOMENAL. I am a huge fan of Barbuto. If you haven't already checked out this place, you better go soon because this culinary treasure won't be at its original location for long. Its building just got bought out and there's a big chance that they'll have to move out. This sucks because they have a pretty cool spot as it is. When it's warm, this conveniently repurposed garage opens up its doors to the good weather (...if that even exists in New York).
FUN FACT: Part of the movie "The Other Woman" was filmed at Barbuto.
Anyways, it was a real challenge writing about that chicken. I'm going to take a break now but you should head straight to Barbuto as soon as you can.
We started our meal with a Salumi platter because that's how the cool kids do it. It came with some classy looking bread sticks and the following meats: prosciutto di parma, cacciatorini, and soppressata. Prosciutto is made of the cured and aged hind leg of a pig. It's the smooth and silky type of cured meat. The cacciatorini is really just a small salami with a nice rich pork taste. Soppressata is another dry cured pork sausage but not as small as the cacciatorini. It usually has larger and more visible chunks of fat and pork in it. These sausages can range from being slightly sweet to fairly hot.
And, we also got the Gnocchi stagionale with corn, cherry tomato, basil, and Parmesan. It was toasted so it had that nice charred taste. But, it was still soft and light like little pillows of dough dumplings. They could be made with a variety of ingredients like flour, eggs, or potatoes. Not only was it prepared well but it came with the best vegetables ever: corn and cherry tomatoes. The best part is that after cooking, these two vegetables become mini flavor bombs.
But, yo. The real reason I'm so excited to talk about Barbuto is because of the roasted chicken. THIS. CHICKEN. This chicken is straight out of heaven. I just had dinner but, as I am writing this post, I'm starting to feel ravenous just thinking about this work of art. I have never tasted chicken like this. Is this even chicken?! It tastes like world peace or rainbows. It's absolutely immaculate.
It also comes with a little bit of salsa verde. The skin is perfectly salty and brown. The quality of the meat is just unreal. It's juicy, tender, and beautiful.