Lanza's
168 1st Ave, New York 10009
Btwn 10th & 11th St
212-674-7014
My father didn't want me to move to Santa Fe. Shortly before I left, we ordered in Italian. As I helped myself to a giant portion of capellini bolognese, he said, "You know, there's no such thing as Italian food in the southwest."
"Dad," I said pedantically. "Somewhere, in the entirety of the city of Santa Fe, which is, I might add, famous for its restaurants, there's bound to be an Italian place."
"Nope," said my father. "Nowhere. Doesn't exist."
Of course, he was giving me a hard time. But of course you also know where this is going; I didn't have good Italian food for roughly ten months because while it <i>did</i> exist, it was all five hundred million bajillion dollars a plate. I also never really found pizza that was more than decent, although to be fair they put green chile on it, which went a long way towards soothing the pain.
But basically, Santa Fe did not have what Lanza's essentially is: a hole in the wall, medium range, casual and delicious dining experience.
Lanza's will always stand out in my mind because every time I've eaten there has been a unique and touching experience. Like the birthday dinner where my friends and I were given a free dessert of chocolate-covered strawberries apparently just because we were having a good time or the time I was sat near a woman celebrating what had to be at least her 90th birthday surrounded by her huge and loving and intriguingly multicultural family. The interior of Lanza's looks like your Italian grandmother's living room, if you have an Italian grandmother, which I don't. It's tiny and crowded - one of the few strikes against it I can give is that it can be uncomfortably loud and the lighting is less than ideal. Whether that's an inevitable price that has to be paid for all the good aspects of the atmosphere I can't say, but it can be a little irritating.
The food is nothing unexpected. No fusion cuisine here. It's more or less standard stalwart and starchy Italian - chicken parm, fried calamari, a ton of pasta. It's done impeccably well, though - you'll-be-thinking-about-it-months-to-come good - and like I insinuated before, you have no idea how much you'll miss marinara until you move across the country, and then some days it is the only thing you think about. Besides, the day pasta and shellfish in sauce is considered a bad thing is the day I go home early with a headache.
Lanza is a great little find. It has all the makings of a staple for anyone in the area.
