Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria

Michelin Rating: Bib Gourmand

Photo Credit: Corinne Durand via New York Magazine

We decided to ease into it.

We would work our way up to a star later. January, after the binging of the holidays, required something less taxing, both in terms of digestion and getting dressed and sitting up straight. We wanted somewhere we could go and slump into our seats and understand the menu without thinking too hard. Where elbows on tables is considered appropriate to the congenial atmosphere rather than an insult to well-bred mothers everywhere.

We didn’t have a 4 join us for our inaugural brunch at Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria (not to be confused with Il Buco, its more formal sister site, the one without the market by the front door). M got there first and was seated immediately, without her entire party. This is highly aberrant, and for this alone Il Buco AV should be commended for their hospitality. It’s a difficult thing, to ask staff to apply judgment in these situations, and we’ve seen hosts adhere to policy so strictly that a diner waiting for their party wouldn’t be seated in a room full of empty tables. In this case the joint was bustling at half-past noon with happy brunchers, but the hosts took M’s word for it that J and B were on their way and seated her immediately with a glass of water.

That alone would make the restaurant likable, but an exposed-brick wall, re-purposed wooden communal tables, and a tin ceiling all signaled its chummy intents. Everything, including the diners and the menu, is just attractive enough to be enticing without being intimidating. Noise travels in a bouncy, clamorous way that conveniently fills in the holes of a conversation with hang-overed companions, seats are closely set but not inappropriately intimate, servers hustle and upsell in a way that is trying (and almost succeeding) to be more helpful than obvious. This is day-time fare, and a weekend brunch is the right time to enjoy this kind of energy.

Don’t get too comfortable, though, as the likability factor goes sideways before you even order: you pay for your bread here. This is an alienating, controversial move on a restaurant’s part, but Il Buco AV goes for it. It’s a buck a head for the regular bread basket, though they do offer a more elaborate spread of a variety of slices. We opted for the simpler option–for a dollar per capita, the bread comes with fresh ricotta drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with red pepper flakes. At first blush, charging for bread seemed like a strange and almost draconian way to increase their covers, as the actual food cost on a couple of slices is probably in the pennies. But the ricotta was particularly delicious and evoked a thread of commentary on its underrated status among cheeses, with J bemoaning its maligned reputation due to its distantly related super-market cousins, and how B would have been happy eating nothing else all day but this spread on bread (that sentiment alone is probably worth a dollar, as we are surely destined to spend far more on mixed emotions as the months go by).

The cocktails were interesting but the appetizers won the day. Crispy artichokes’ paper-crisp edges yielded to meaty insides, and the preserved lemon mitigated the charred bitterness that comes with deeply cooked crucifers. They were addictive in the way dishes are that have low-digit ingredients. The lattuga salad arrives presented with full leaves stacked into a tower, which could strike one as a little lazy while striking another as charmingly rustic–if you were trained to eat salad in the continental manner, which is to say without cutting it with a knife, it would strike you as a little sadistic. Whatever impression its presentation leaves you, however, will be superseded by your reaction to the anchovy dressing–whether that impression is good or bad depends on how you feel about anchovies out of a jar.

J went with the lasagnette, which evoked a non-committal but sincere “good” when asked how her meal was. B and M, who ordered the carbonara and the bucatini cacio e pepe, respectively, mildly clashed on whether the pasta was cooked properly al dente or to the point of losing il dente. M thought it was toeing the line in a manner that made a simple dish more assertive, while B thought it insisted on its point too finely. Both agreed, however, that the kitchen is very fond of its black pepper and very, very generous with the ingredient.

When B ordered an affogato to finish the meal, M rued having filled her coffee quota earlier. Affogatos are Starbucks’s next great cash cow, if they choose to pursue it. Imagine ordering not whole, not skim, not almond, not coconut milk with your coffee, but vanilla gelato. If we are doomed to be an obese nation, we might as well do it right.

The party left fully satisfied and well-taken care of, and all agreed it was worth returning to. This is not a place to come to for quiet refinement; this is also not a restaurant that hides its attempts to fatten its margins. In return, however, you are treated respectfully in a popular Lower East Side location, which, despite all its many charms, is not the neighborhood’s forte. The food is direct and monocratic, as rustic Italian food often is, which was fine by us given our over-laden palates recovering from holiday riches.

It was a meal that required not too much from the diner. It was a meal that did all the work for you. It was the meal we were looking for.

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