PRICE:
Frommer's Very Highly Recommended

The kind of food that is served at A Voce; rustic Italian for the most part with exceptional nods to innovation, seems somewhat out of place in the loud, postmodern dining room in a sleek high rise just off Madison Park. The restaurant would, I believe, be better suited in the Art Deco New York Life building next door. But that is a minor gripe considering the extraordinary tastes created by chef, Andrew Carmellini, formerly of Café Boulud. At A Voce you can start with something peasant-pleasing like Sardinian sheep's milk ricotta and slather it on thick, crusty grilled bread or you can sample the hip, wild branzini tartara (Mediterranean sea bass) -- something no peasant would ever dare eat. The same can be said for the \"secondi.\" Chef Carmellini offers \"My Grandmother's meat ravioli\" and though my grandmother never made meat ravioli -- she thought meat ravioli was something you poured from a can -- Carmellini's nonna's meat ravioli is so good it certainly was not from a can, or, continuing on that rustic theme, the \"country-style Tuscan tripe,\" with barlotti beans, tomato, fried duck egg, and grilled ciabatta bread, which (minus the duck egg) would have made my normally dour Calabrese grandfather happy. A Voce offers daily specials called \"del mercato\" which usually features the chef's more unique creations like, on the day I visited a \"rabbit terrina\" with salt-cured foie gras. You won't go wrong whether you try the rustic or the modern. The chef's palate-cleansing citrus tiramisu is the perfect conclusion.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's New York City 2008, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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