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ARIA WINE BAR – NYC

117 Perry St. (nr. Hudson) New York, NY 10014

Date dined: 3.16.12

Photo courtesy of www.Urbandaddy.com

Late winter / early spring seems to be the hot time of year to host large birthday parties. I had another 28-person dinner this past Friday night and, as you can imagine, it is quite a task to find a place that is good and yet won’t completely demolish your bank account. The private room down below Aria winebar was a great venue to achieve both these things. For $65 we had a wide variety of small Italian plates (or cicchetti) accompanied by unlimited red and white wine and prosecco.

With weathered floors and furniture, a communal bar and partially open kitchen this tiny, rustic winebar becons you to enter from the street. Down some precariously placed stairs was a huge communal table large enough to fit our entire group.

We all sat down at the table to small plates and even smaller cups of wine. Overall, everything we had was good but nothing was truly excellent making this a perfectly fine place to eat but also don’t expect to have a life-changing meal. And a word of warning to those who do not eat cheese because almost everything on this menu contains cheese!

To begin we had plates of assorted meats and cheeses. The large meat plate included prosciutto, bresaola and mortadella with some artichokes and red peppers. The cheeses were a mixture of cow and goat’s milk and included one of my favorites – Humboldt Fog which is easily identified by the line of ash down the center of the soft goat cheese. Another plate had salami and chunks of parmigiano.

Assorted Meats

Assorted Cheeses

Salami

Next was a simple caprese salad with creamy burrata.

Caprese

Small dishes of meatballs were passed around with boards of mushroom bruschetta and montasio cheese.  The meatballs were kind of lukewarm and the bruschetta was more like a pizza with no sauce.

Mini Meatballs

Bruschetta

The pasta course ensued with three dishes- a simple gnocchi al pomodoro, a pappardelle and a truffled mac and cheese. The gnocchi and sauce were both light and tasty. The pappardelle was overcooked and the sauce was pretty bland and watery with some rogue bits of sausage. As for the mac and cheese, you would only know it was “truffled” by the tiny black speck used as a garnish – otherwise it made a fine regular mac and cheese.

Gnocchi

Pappardelle

Mac and Cheese

To finish we had an assortment of traditional Italian desserts- tiramisu, panna cotta and a simple cheesecake.

Cheesecake

Panna Cotta

Aria was the perfect choice for a large birthday dinner with friends or would also be great for a date upstairs in the cozy main dining area.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!