Who Doesn't Like Pasta? - Where to find innovative and mouth-watering pasta dishes in Lower Manhattan. The area that encompasses Lower Manhattan is diverse, to say the least. The neighborhoods of Soho, Chelsea, FiDi, Nolita, Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side offer discerning foodies a plethora of captivating and delicious choices. With a truly international rainbow of cuisines available to you, the only real problem is deciding which restaurant to visit ( or order from ) first .One of the oldest and most popular cuisines that you will find here is Italian. The first wave of immigrants from places like Naples and Sicily settled in Lower Manhattan way, way back in the 1890s. They brought with them food such as pizza and pasta. These dishes might have seemed a bit strange to the Irish, German, and Polish immigrants who had arrived on our shores a generation or two earlier, not to mention the descendants of the British colonists. What are these squiggly, long noodles with tomatoes on them, anyway? Well, as it turned out, the naysayers soon became converts, once they tasted just how good a plate of spaghetti and meatballs could be.
Within a couple of decades, give or take, the pizzerias and small cafes on Mulberry Street became a beacon for hungry New Yorkers, bored with the hearty but plain American fare that they were used to eating. Nowadays, you can find excellent pasta all over this great city of ours. But, Lower Manhattan still lays claim to some of the tastiest and most authentic pasta dishes you'll find anywhere. So, without any further hesitation, let's take a quick tour and discover pasta-centric restaurants that you should know about.
The Spaghetti Incident - Lower East Side
Tomato sauce, basil, great pasta and rock n' roll! What more could you want? Well, you'll find all that and a whole lot more within the exposed brick walls of The Spaghetti Incident. The warm hospitality, amazing food, and intimate lighting transport you to a trattoria on the rustic streets of a village in the Italian countryside. Brought to you by chef and owner Giovanni Gentile, this small thirty-five-seat pasta cafe is big on flavor. And where does rock and roll come in, you may well ask? The place is named after 80's rock legends Guns and Roses' iconic album The Spaghetti Incident.
In addition to fabulous pasta dishes, the chef's specialty is various types of Arancini, which are Italian rice balls. The ultimate street food in locales such as Palermo and Naples, Arancini makes for a perfect appetizer. They are surprisingly light on the tummy and several tempting varieties are available including beef ragu and fontina cheese, pesto and gorgonzola as well as artichoke and Parmigiano. All come with a marinara dipping sauce. Come on, you can't say NO to this!