Last week Steph and I made our way to Emporio in SoHo, a recently opened restaurant brought to us by the creators of Aurora, one of our favorite places to eat in Williamsburg. As soon as we walked in the door my attention was immediately diverted to the slicer behind the bar, the distinct manual kind in shinny red. I saw prosciutto in my future. For those of you who have had the pleasure of experiencing the product of one of these, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
We surveyed the bar, kitchen, and front and back dinning rooms before taking a seat at our table, nicely nestled in the window up front. The décor was nice and almost rustic, with some corn hanging on the wall here and there. It was simple, comfortable, and not imposing. It was nice, but we were not there for the décor.
Soon after being seated, a carefully selected stream of food and drink, curated by our host Guiseppe, began its decent upon our table. We started with olives, bread, and a bottle of wine before moving on to prosciutto with ficottioa, a shot of lemon martini, oysters in multiple varieties, grilled octopus with fingerling potatoes, baked shrimp, homemade mezzi rigatoni with oxtail, sea bass, and a shot of chocolate martini. At this point, dessert was not happening, so Guiseppe queued up another round of chocolate martini shots to round out our meal. I was entirely overwhelmed; Guiseppe was Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.
Each dish was perfect, which is quite impressive given the expanse of our selections. Even the best restaurants always have a few mediocre items tucked into the menu. Granted we didn’t try everything, but we really did put the kitchen to the test here, and it passed with flying colors. The prosciutto was sliced perfectly: thin, but not like paper, and was unadultered by the heat generated by an electric slicer. The oysters were fresh, cold, and served with a spicy and acidic, yet non-overpowering sauce which accented the flavor of the oyster without hiding it. The homemade pasta was faultless in texture, firm and full-bodied, and the oxtail in the sauce perfectly tender. They don’t have a liquor license yet, so the martinis are made with a rice ‘wine’ which closely mirrors vodka in flavor, but without the “the-burn-means-its-working†element.
This was some of the best food I’ve had in quite some time, and the prices are not prohibitive: apps run around $10, pastas at $15, and main courses around $20. I’ll definitely be back to this one.
Address:
231 Mottst
(Mott and Prince)
New York, NY 10012
Phone: 212-966-1234
Open for lunch, brunch, and dinner
www.auroraristorante.com/
