RESTAURANTS • First Person
With the season officially arriving on Thursday afternoon at 4:51p, it’s a good moment to reflect again on one of FOUND’s perennial concerns, the Restaurant of the Summer.
Last June, also just before the solstice, we explained the concept:
The restaurant of the summer is a freshly opened place that captures the spirit of that particular season — not unlike a song of the summer. Ten years ago, in 2013, that restaurant was Charlie Bird. In the northwest corner of Soho, it brought a true lightness, helped largely by its west-facing windows and the low-slung buildings across Sixth Avenue which allow that golden hour sun to pour in. It’s not a restaurant you only want to visit in summer, but it’s the season when it shines most.
We wrote on the topic of ROTS several times last summer, bouncing between candidates including Libertine, Bar Vinazo, and Roscioli. And this year, we’ve already shortlisted Fort Greene’s new New Orleans-inflected Strange Delight and Top Chef alum Harold Dieterle’s new West Village Italian seaford spot Il Totano as early contenders.
While the debate is fun (and itself, really, the whole point of the exercise), I feel confident declaring today — yes, two days before the season’s start — that New York City’s restaurant of the summer for 2024 is…
Massara.
Stepping into the brand new Flatiron restaurant last Thursday night, my first impression was one of cool, signaled by the stonework underfoot at the check-in area and extending inside to a six-seat bar and, beyond, the downstairs dining room. Back behind that, a pizza oven delivered from Naples and an open fire for grilling (what’s certain to be a knockout dry-aged branzino) helped anchor the Southern Italian vibe. Which, it turns out, is exactly what chef Stefano Stecchi intends. Massara is Stecchi’s first follow-up to his smash hit pasta sanctum, Rezdôra, and the entire undertaking is about as serious as any new restaurant can get (while still feeling rustic).
For those who suffered years without breaching the nearly impassable door at Rezdôra, glad tidings: Massara, spanning two floors, is much bigger. Beyond the added seats, there’s another bar area on the second floor.
But last week, the restaurant was just getting up to speed, having served 100 covers the previous night (and the night before that, a mere 20). Sitting at the downstairs bar, we enjoyed the smallest, most perfect Margherita pizza I’ve ever had, served atop a wooden pedestal. Watching these tiny pies, which the restaurant calls pizzettes, emerging on large paddles from the pizza oven is one of the room’s many pleasures. While there are no larger sizes, there will be a two-hour, $90 pizza tasting, debuting soon.
Another standout: the caprese, tomatoes fresh from the Union Square Greenmarket (yes, hothouse, but local), eclipsing the buffalo mozzarella. (The secret, per Stecchi: adding tomato water to the vinaigrette to draw out even more tomato taste. Brilliant.) Our first perfect tomato salad of the season — welcome, summer.
But Stecchi is, at his core, a pasta master. We tried three of the six on the menu, all fabulous: candele with ragu Genovese (a classic Sunday sauce prep), “cheesemakers” raviolini, and long spaghettoni wrapped high with tomato sauce, uni, and prawns, a dish that comes with an incredible plot twist that I won’t reveal here. How could I? Massara is nothing if not this season’s definitive blockbuster — and like any great blockbuster, you won’t want its best moments spoiled. Better see it soon, before everyone else starts talking about it, too. –Lockhart Steele
→ Massara (Flatiron) • 912 Broadway • Mon-Sat 530-10p • Reserve.