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It’s always gratifying to return to a place
where you enjoyed a meal or a few—and to find, a couple years later,
that the place is humming along just fine. Admittedly, in the case
of la Bottega Trattoria at the Maritime Hotel, there’s the nearly
foolproof location: an al fresco dining plaza nearly two
floors above
Ninth
Avenue and the hoi polloi hustling their way into the MPD. Seated
above the street fray, there’s a sense of insularity—as if those of
us dining at the well-placed tables have come upon a slice of Capri
in Chelsea. And while in winter the interior dining room with its
wood-burning oven is warm and cozy, la dolce vita at la
Bottega is best lived while dining beneath a summer sky.
The sweetness of summer’s bounty, for example,
can be found in an insalata fava e scarola, a lovely mix of
escarole, fava beans, pecorino Romano and mint. Equally delicious,
and perhaps even more evocative of
Italy’s riches is an insalata carciofi con tartufo, a tangle
of raw artichoke and radicchio, lusciously dressed with white
truffle oil and Parmigiano. The current chef, Bart Retolatto, also
makes a toothsome spaghetti al pomodoro, a nod to the summer
season with garlic, olive oil, tomato sauce and fresh basil.
It’s nearly midnight. Above us, the moon glows, while around us the
lighting is low, as is the attitude. Open since 2004, la Bottega
has passed through its hipper-than-thou phase and settled into being
just comfortably hip—not unlike that little trattoria you found
along the Amalfi coast a couple summers ago… What was its name
again?
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