Angolo SoHo Is Down On the Corner

Adam Platt heads to the corner of Grand Street and West Broadway to weigh in on Italian new comer Angolo SoHo. He takes a few jabs in a pretty overwhelmingly negative review, but doesn't close without mentioning what works well at the restaurant. Chef Michael Berardino, formerly of dell'anima and Cannibal, is responsible for the "comfortingly generic items" on the menu that are offered in a room whose "tables are outfitted with orange café chairs that look like they’ve been purchased on sale at some Ikea remnant store on the outskirts of Milan."

Berardino's pastas "aren’t as accomplished as those at the grand, multi-star pasta palaces around town, but if you’re looking for a little sustenance while wandering this carb-challenged shopping mecca, you could do worse." Saving graces are 26 wines by the glass and Emilio Bagnoli, "who appears to be Angolo Soho’s owner, or maybe its maître d’ (or maybe both)," with his charming, practiced tango he dances in shoes seemingly borrowed from Sirio Maccioni.

Platt cites "problematic location" and "generic decor" as a few blemishes to Angolo SoHo's perfection, and most of the desserts "won't win any prizes." He gives the restaurant one star out of five in a review that is the first from the critics to investigate the explosion of Italian restaurants to land within a few blocks of one another in SoHo. Still in the cross hairs are Galli, Isola Trattoria e Crudo Bar, and Principessa, all Italian restaurants to open in SoHo within the last six months. Who heads where next?